


Better Broken

by GalacticGoat



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Death, Great Googly Moogly It's All Gone To Shit: A Fanfiction, Heads up: '&' is for platonic relationships, Humanstuck, Illnesses, Impromptu Funeral, Injury, M/M, Rewrite, Slow Build, Trans Character, Zombiestuck, [mysterious kazoo music starts playing], i should've just added that tag like twelve years ago whoops, this is actually a
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-05-13 12:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5708938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalacticGoat/pseuds/GalacticGoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a vibrant, sunny morning when you had woken up and thought on a whim, <i>‘Throw everything you’ve got at me, universe. For once in my miserable lifetime, I’m absolutely positive that I can take it.’</i></p><p>Three hours later, when you found yourself pinned between the asphalt and a car smack outside a burning city, in desperate need of painkillers, a weapon, and possibly an amputation, you screamed curses at the same entity for being so damn cruel. </p><p>The universe, being the smug, tyrannical motherfucker it has been and always will be, seemed to shrug back and say, "Well sorry, Vantas."</p><p> </p><p>  "You asked for it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

The thing about the tragic recaps you hear on the news is that a good deal of the time, they start out the same.

 

“It was a day just like any other,” “We never saw it coming,” “Everything had just seemed so _normal_ ,” yada, yada.

Unfortunately, your own sorry ass fell directly into that cliche on that day. You had woken up with a surprisingly sparkly attitude considering it was a Monday. You had taken a shower and got dressed, then went downstairs and _tried_ to be civil with Kankri during breakfast. You had failed that previous goal, and  _tried_ not to smash your bowl of cereal directly over his self-righteous head. Then you had stormed upstairs, crammed your schoolwork into your bag, thunked your way back downstairs, and stomped your merry way out the door towards the bus station. All according to plan.

The bus ride to the city and towards your school was the same ordeal as ever, with the bus driver giving her familiar disgruntled stare in the rearview mirror, and the local douchebags “bro”ing it up in the back of the vehicle. You had popped in your earbuds, and let the rhythm of Will Smith’s rapping carry you away from the unpleasant ride; you had a good mood to uphold, and if it meant treating your attitude like finely spun glass, then so it would be. You would walk around all day with your hands cupped around it screaming “DO NOT TOUCH,” if you had to. Nothing was going to wreck this.

...But then of course, something did.

The brakes whined, and the bus came to a pitiful stop, finishing with a quiet sputter. The driver sat frozen at the wheel for a moment, as if she hadn’t comprehended why she still wasn’t moving. The riders, yourself included, all went silent as she tapped the gauge on the dashboard, let out a quiet curse, and lumbered outside. A moment later, she barked out a louder, more exasperated swear. Turning your head to look through the back window, you saw a long, dark trail following the bus’ path. Great. Your damn vehicle had been leaky. You were all stranded on a quiet road, framed by wheat fields.

“Well, this is fantastic,” you grumbled, putting away your earbuds and moving to stand upright.

“What are you doing, dude?” a douche from the back called, watching you sling your bag over your shoulder.

“Walking, I guess,” you growled. Kankri was off at work by then, and Dad had been preaching out of town for the past week. There was no way they could have picked you up, and it wasn’t like anyone there would have lent you a ride, if they had one. School was kind of a must, considering the state of your grades and how close you were to the end of the quarter.

You meandered through the isle and started to descend down the stairs when the bus driver let out a restrictive sound; an “ah, ah, ah!” of sorts. The kind of sound that told you that ‘ _whatever the fuck you think you’re doing, stop._ ’ You raised your eyes in her direction, ready to give her a verbal thrashing because _what goddamn credentials did she have to tell you what you could and could not do?_ \-- you halted in your tracks.

She had positioned herself flat against the side of the bus, her larger form pressed as tightly as possible against its surface. Her eyes were set rigidly in front of her; she must’ve heard you, rather than seen you. You had stared at her, waiting for her to elaborate on her command.

“So…?” you had asked, wearily looking out into the wheat field by the bus’s side. Seeing nothing.

“Don’t move,” she had breathed back with a sense of urgency far out of place from the current situation, “there’s something out there.”

The rest of the bus had caught on to the scent trail of bullfuckery that was wafting from the front of the bus; they prowled until they were standing right behind you, gazing out into the field as well.

“None of you move,” she gritted towards them. Her braced arms were trembling. Her eyes were flickering now, trying to comprehend something’s form, and you snapped your head to follow her line of sight. You saw it.

“Holy fuck,” you wheezed. The others’ attention focused on you.

“What?”

“What did you see?”

“Tell us!” Their voices rose like a chorus. Doing an effective job of ruining what little cover you all might have had. You stomped your heel quickly, and spat at them.

“If you want to get out of this predicament with all your body parts intact, kindly take those flapping lips of yours,  _and zip them_.”

“ _P_ _redicament_?” one of them echoed, and just like that, they all realized that they were neck deep in a steaming pile of dog shit. They went silent.

But it had taken far too long for them to be quiet.

The thing bursted from the field in a sprint, releasing a garbled shriek as it headed towards your group. Everyone was screaming as the bus driver surged forward to meet it, suddenly driving her fist through its eye socket and kicking one of its kneecaps with all her might. Jesus Christ, she had guts.

“Go!” she bellowed, starting to curb stomp the fallen body. She didn’t need to say it twice; everyone scurried from the bus and started to race towards the city, its silhouette looming from a solid few miles away.

You glanced over your shoulder as you ran, urging the driver to join the race. There was a flood of relief when you saw that she was still upright, backing away from the form on the ground. Horror flitted across her face as she surveyed her blood-coated forearms, yet she quickly picked up a jogging pace with resolve stamped on her mouth.

“Come on!” you had called, taking a brief moment to look ahead and note the others’ forms still close by, yet in front of you. You turn back just in time to see her shouldering yet another attacker, falling to the ground in an urgent tussle.

“No!” you shouted, her form growing smaller as you continued running. She bucked and swung her arms at the body, struggling, and struggling, and... She went limp. You whipped your head forward again, pointedly ignoring the moisture streaking down your cheek.

The jog was terrifyingly silent, and the only sounds were quiet pants and feet slapping the road. You had half a mind to stop and whip out your earbuds, but you wrestled down that lurking thought each time it raised its intrusive head. ‘ _Someone had just_ died _of something lodged safely in the ‘not fucking natural’ zone_ , _you incompetent dunderfuck. Were you really going to try and drown out the reality of the situation with Will Smith?_ ’

The group elected to stick together. You took occasional walking breaks every mile or two, then got right back to running. There was a silent agreement that stopping wasn’t an option. You found yourself lurking near the rear, corralling the weaker people ever so slightly in front of you to ensure they didn’t get lost. The headrunners glanced back at you, asking for input every once in a while. Each time, you had nodded them forward, in the same direction. That was what you got for being the first to try to leave the bus. Being appointed leader was nice and all, but the temptation of telling the others to take their expectations and shove it up their asses was settled on the back of your tongue. You hadn’t asked for the role (surprisingly), and you sure hell didn’t have any worthwhile answers to this problem. You tried to lead anyways.

Half a mile before you reached the skyscrapers of the city, something changed. Brooding clouds had settled in the sky, and the sound of glass shattering and people screaming hit you before the symphony of midday traffic did.

“Let’s huddle up,” you had suggested. Everyone slowed and bunched together like a trembling flock of sheep. You had nearly snorted at the timid action. You were people, not livestock.

“Keep moving forward,” you called with uncertainty, unsure of what else to do. You tried taking a few steps to get everyone into motion.

Then a growl rung out.

“Shi--” you started to swear, right as the group exploded into a billion pieces before your eyes. Every person for themself. You watched a frothing monster tackle a man to your right, watched them writhe for a solid half of a minute before the man’s rigid form sagged like a slaughtered chew toy. A woman in front of you grappled with another one, pushing and shoving like kids in a schoolyard fight. Your legs moved before you told them to. You heaved yourself through the chaos, gasping for clean air.

Suddenly, the mouth of the city was in clear sight, right in front of you. And suddenly, you had the overwhelming urge to turn around and dash back the way you came, screaming.

People were running, limping, crawling in the streets. Windows shattered as figures slammed civilians into buildings, and even from this distance you could see red smearing every available surface. A car or two rolled into the chaos, and mowed over both humans and monsters alike; speeding up as if they were nothing more than roadkill. A person’s howl carried itself towards you, and you witnessed them collapse, blistering in the street. On fire.

“Oh my God,” you breathed, dumbstruck.

Interrupting your daze, someone shouldered past you, shoving you roughly as they tripped towards the city. You stumbled, looking up to see them staring directly at you, mouthing, “I’m sorry.”

“What--” you started to ask before it dawned on you. ‘ _Fuck, fuck, FUCK--’_

Another person shoved you to the side, and your hands flew out to wrestle them, meeting air instead of resistance. The thing ignored you entirely, still powering its way towards the first shover. You stayed still, bewildered, as it pounced on them, its torn jaw unhinging and leaving ragged bites anywhere and everywhere.

_Why hadn’t it attacked you?_

There was little time to mull over the question, because a car’s horn blared you to attention. It was swerving back and forth, doing its best to avoid hitting everyone as it drove in the direction you’d ran from. You worriedly traced its sharp turn to your left, then its veering back to the road. You took a few nervous steps back. It zoomed directly towards you, picking up its speed. You tried to step to the side, found yourself framed by two feasting monsters on either side, occupied with your ex-group members.

The driver’s gaze finally snapped to his front, too focused on his flanks beforehand. His mouth formed into an ‘O,’ and in the windshield’s reflection, you could see your own mouth doing the same damn thing. He yanked his steering wheel to his left, your right.

Physics jumped in, eager to prove itself to be a grade-A bitch.

Inertia carried the car forward as it turned, but it _rolled_. You scrambled backwards and watched in horror as the car performed a sideways somersault. A dismembered leg caught your heel, and you tumbled over, spread-eagled on your back and stunned as the vehicle thunked onto its side with a massive gust of dust. Directly on your left arm.

Your shriek nearly drowned out the explosion you heard in the city, only a heartbeat after the crash.

For a solid second you were assured that you had passed out, vision blackening from the overwhelming sensation. Your nerves were screaming and berating you, ‘ _Why weren’t you moving your arm from that spot? Why weren’t you trying to wiggle it out-- Ow, fuck, fuck! Never mind, keep it still-- Ow! For the love of fucking Jesus in a goddamn breadbasket, stop struggling!’_ You thumped your free hand on your chest, trying to beat out a proper breathing pattern for a moment; hyperventilating was only making this worse. It wasn’t working, so you swept your hand across your face, a consoling gesture. You stifled a moan instead, the motion catching on cuts all across your face. There must have been glass everywhere. Your hand flopped back to your side, and you opted to stare at the sky instead.

This couldn’t be happening.

_But it just had._

This wasn’t fucking fair! Fuck the universe, fuck the forces governing it, and fuck its shitty ways.

_No matter how unfair it was, there wasn’t anything you could change about it._

If you could have just pulled your arm out from under the car and found a way to reunite with your family, you would have never taken Kankri and Dad for granted ever again.

 _Over half the city was bargaining for the exact same thing, blockhead_.

Your throat closed as you realized that everything you’d ever aspired for, ever dreamed of achieving, had been effectively closed off to you. A door slammed in your face. Just like that, done and gone. Everything you had ever done was pointless. A dry sob caught itself in your chest, but the sadness was already fading.

_You weren’t a failure for never getting what you wanted._

 

...So.

This was it. The end of the line. It was coming at you, as inevitable as the fact that the sun would set and later rise. You couldn’t do anything about it, so sitting back and letting it come to you was the most dignified choice.

 

_Acceptance._

 

You blinked at the last thought, letting the word register in your head a little more firmly. You flipped through your earlier thought process, just as confirmation.

Fucking shit.

You had rocketed through the five stages of the Kübler-Ross model in less than two minutes.

 

Your subconscious mind had registered you were royally fucked before your conscience had. You had coughed out a laugh at that.

You wrapped your right arm around your torso in a self-comforting hug, yanking your mind back from straying to the screaming pain in your left arm.

Glass crunched from the other side of the car suddenly, causing you to flinch. You had forgotten about the driver. A twinge of guilt caused you to twitch your nose in self-disdain. But the now-familiar moans were what caused you to freeze.

“P-Please…” the driver sobbed on the other side of the car, likely still dragging himself from the carriage. More glass crunched. You thought he had managed to stand up.

“I have kids stuck at my house,” he tried to reason. His voice still sounded hopeless. Your eyes were trained to the sky, pretending you weren’t hearing this entire scene play out.

“No!” he screamed, chopped off mid-yell. A louder crunch sounded out, and fists banged against the side of the car. “I have family-- Please, please, plea-- help!” he started to gurgle. He was probably suffocating in mucus and blood, spewing it everywhere as he shouted. He tapered into silence. Multiple satisfied groans crept their way to your ears, and you shuddered as wet sounds started ruthlessly. Tearing, chewing, the kind of wheezing people make when they’re pausing to catch their breath between cramming their faces. You were shaking, bundling yourself directly against the underside of the car, working to make yourself smaller.

Then the agonized wailing began. It wasn’t from the same source as the scene right by you; the distressed calls start small, then gradually grew. You twisted your head, tired of staring at the misleadingly subdued sky. It wasn’t helping your heart rate slow down, anyways. Your eyes caught onto a figure racing by the car, and you understood the sounds in their entirety.

She was on fire, like the singular figure from earlier. She patted frantically at her flaming clothing, arms flailing and only fueling the fire. Your eyes were glazing as you watched, too shocked to fully comprehend the heat. She tottered two steps in your direction and fell forward, her face propped a few yards away, aimed towards you. Your heart was galloping again, more because ‘ _FIRE!’_ rather than ‘ _PERSON ON FIRE!_ ’

Her arm snaked its way towards you, a desperate reach, but all you did in response was choke on the smoke from her burning skin.

“Help,” she whined, the remainder of her breath going up into the flames.

The pain, the smoke, and the terror finally caught up to you as you stared into those bubbling sockets.

You passed out.

 

 

_______________

 

 

You can’t imagine the conversation you’ll have years in the future with your grandchildren, all cozied up by the fire where the current apocalyptic bullshit was but a mere dream.

 

“Grandpa, grandpa!” they’d chant as they curled around your massive armchair, “what were you doing when the world went to shit?”

You can’t imagine the conversation, because there’s no way in _hell_ you’d be able to look them in the eyes and tell them, “Oh, you know. There was chaos, loss, and an overwhelming amount of death going on all around me. But I didn’t see most of it, ‘cause I was conked out for a solid span of time.”

All you know is that you’ve been drifting in the dark soup of unconsciousness long enough that your skin is likely pruning. Your limbs skim the surface, but you always sink back down before you can catch a breath… You jut your chin forward, feeling your lips ghosting the air above and…

 

_______________

 

You nearly drown. Someone’s dumping water down your throat while you’re trying to suck in air, and the end result is disastrous. It goes up your nose and burns your gullet, so you automatically spit it right back into the donor’s face.

You don’t bother to observe whoever’s crouching above you, you simply curl to your side, and pretend that the numbness in your pinned arm isn’t setting off warning sirens in your head. It’s not like you’d be hearing them loud and clear, anyways. Your body is aching like you just ran ten miles, and your mind is filled with a fog heavy enough that momentarily lifting it for the sake of consciousness makes you feel like a goddamn bodybuilder.

“‘M Going back to sleep,” you mumble to no one in particular.

“No, no, no, no!” the stranger chants from above. You scrunch your nose as your mind stutters over how quickly their words had shot out.

“One ‘no’ was ‘nough,” you complain to the asphalt, “and screw you; ‘M exhausted.”

“Uh,” they falter for a moment, “I’m sure that moving around will make you feel better!” The false enthusiasm in the person’s voice is downright _aggravating_ , like sandpaper for your patience.

“Your logic ‘s like telling someone with a broken leg to ‘walk it off,’” you growl, eyes still shut. Your subconscious gives you a prod, waiting for something… Oh. “You obtuse fuck.” There you go.

“Well, at least he’s saying _something_ ,” another voice calls from afar. You can’t find it in yourself to give a damn over how many people are around you. You’re still trying to toe your way back into that soupy black unconscious state; breathing on the surface is ten times worse than being down there.

“‘Night,” you sarcastically sigh, hunching further into yourself, your pinned arm still extended much to your displeasure.

A pair of arms seize your shoulders and shake you viciously upright then, and they only halt when you let out a startled yelp, pain flaring in your trapped arm. They drop you instantly, and you crumple back downwards like a ragdoll.

“GG…?” Your assailant summons their companion over, “I found the reason behind why he’s been stuck out here, of all places.” Footsteps ring out as the companion strides over to you.

“I would have already strangled you if I had both of my arms available,” you hiss, finally cracking a weary eye open.

A teen your age leans over you, donning a medical mask and what seems to be three decades of dirt all over his body. His hair is shaggy and overgrown, and his eyes tell you that he’s been through hell and back, with his vision seemingly splintered on one side, due to his rectangular glasses having a shattered lense. He’s meticulously coated in bandaids and bandages, looking like 50% gauze, 50% man. A small distance behind him, another teen your age is crouched. She has doodles decorating her mask, and rips and tears riddling her tank top and joggers. Her hair’s tied back in a practical pony tail framed by her bangs, and the lenses of her circular glasses are impossibly clean.

“How have you not been attacked?” the girl asks, a singular brow raised. The bloodstained encounters before your blackout come flickering back to the forefront of your mind with the question, and the gravity of the situation slams into you like a freight train.

“Fuck!” you jolt upright, only to be yanked back by your arm. Your breathing pace picks up exponentially, with your heart hammering against your ribcage.

“‘Fuck’ is right, buddy,” the boy agrees, giving a solemn nod as he sits back on his haunches.

“Am I going to get an answer…?” The girl butts in hopefully. She tilts her head in a sickeningly curious manner.

“No,” you sharply reply, “because I don’t have a fraction of an idea.” The boy shrugs with a contemplative look in his eyes.

“That sounded like an answer to me.”

“Shut up,” both you and the girl say in unison. You can see the glimmer of a grin in the boy’s eyes, despite the harshness of your words.

“Moving on, we’ve gotta get you out of there and head out of the area,” he switches rapidly to business matters. You give a forced, humorless snort at the statement.

“So, do I get any time to say goodbye to this arm, or are we just going to head straight into sawing it off?”

“Puh-lease!” the girl chuckles, waving a hand at your apparently _hilarious_ comment. “It’s not like we have any weapons that we could chop it off with!”

So if they had a blade, amputation would have been a legitimate option for these two. What the fresh fucking hell.

“--And,” the boy jumps in, gaze trained on your panicked expression, “we’d only amputate if we needed to make a super quick getaway.” He places his hands firmly in his lap, as if he’d just settled a controversial matter with absolute finality.

“Well gee, consider me comforted,” you stutter back. Your nerves are engaging in a fist fight with your fatigue, and are winning. Anxiety fiddles with your propped-up arm, making it wobble. It’s getting harder to snark these assholes, but you damn well are going to try your best anyways.

“So what are you going to do, O merciful god and goddess?” you question them, taking a moment to cringe at your stupid name-calling. Living up to their appointed nicknames, they ignore the dumb portion of your sentence.

“We’re gonna rely on some good old fashioned strength,” the boy explains as he clambers to stand up, moving around to the other side of the car. The girl places something by her feet, then trots to his side. Together, they each move and grasp an edge of the bottom side of the car.

“One, two, three,” they count in unison, and surge their strength downwards, pulling the weight of the car onto the carriage. The side edge of the car, where your arm is trapped, rolls with the duo’s motion. The edge works about as effectively as a two ton rolling pin; the fact that your arm is so numb proves itself to be a small mercy in how you don’t feel your arm breaking, you only hear it. The true mystery is how it hadn’t been shattered beforehand.

“Shit,” you choke out, stunned by the horrible _snap_. Unsure whether you can actually move the limb independently, you opt to scoot away from the car entirely. You go back to the fetal position, and nurse your arm, holding it close to your chest as a telltale throb begins to make an appearance. You let your thoughts wander, thinking about the sun on your skin and the smell of the roadside grass rather than whatever is going on beside you.

Metal bouncing on the pavement, followed by an insistent car alarm slap you back to the present. The two teens look almost guilty, as if they’d been caught trying to jack the car instead of lift it off of a civilian, like good Samaritans. The boy ushers the girl to grab the object she’d put down earlier and _holy shit is that a rifle_? The thing is half as tall as her, yet she shoulders it with the confidence of a huntsman… Er, huntswoman.

“Can you watch our backs? We don't know whether or not the car alarm will bring them in, so we’ve got to be careful. Also, don't forget the whole deal about using too much ammo,” the boy waits until the girl nods. “I’ll carry the guy,” he calls, pacing to your side. You roll your drooping eyes.

“‘The guy’ has a name you know,” you tiredly sulk. He maneuvers his hands around and up you go; he’s got you in the fireman’s carry.

“Woah, that’s crazy. I have a name too!” he says, almost mockingly. He breaks into a jog with no warning, and your injured arm bounces against his back hard enough that your pain-stricken groan is absolutely inevitable.

“Ugh,” you whisper to yourself as the momentum sticks a metaphorical middle finger in the direction of your pain tolerance.

“Hey,” the boy interrupts, “better broken than gone altogether, am I right?”  If you could look him in the eyes, you know he’d be giving you a crooked grin right now, one that would match his tone perfectly. You’re unamused.

“Fuck your optimism,” you slur.

Your consciousness starts to slip like soap in wet palms. You grasp and grasp with no purchase, then decide to give up on the entire ridiculous game, relishing the darkness that oozes into the corners of your vision. Something itches in the back of your mind as you sway over the ground…

“The bodies. The bodies are all gone,” you murmur. The asphalt sports an array of blemishes and bloodstains, but you have yet to see a single corpse. The boy says nothing.

 

 

Three gunshots ring out from a small distance away.

 

 

  
This time, unconsciousness slips over you like a warm winter coat.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you didn't see it in the tags, this is actually a rewrite! about a year ago, i was working on a fic called 'dread in my heart', but it fizzled out due to a lack of planning and inspiration-- recently, i started feeling bad over leaving it so open-ended, so i decided to rewrite the whole damn thing! this whole story is significantly less convoluted and detailed, because i wanted this to be an extremely casual rewrite. something shorter but satisfying enough that i can look at it and say, "well this isn't too terrible".
> 
> if you want to read the original thing, here's a link!: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2277474/chapters/5004741  
> (don't kill me because this was my first fic, and i didn't really know what i was doing... meaning it's pretty awful)
> 
> i was aiming to make this whole fic one long megachapter, but as i progressed, i realized that it will probably be easier digest in sections. thus, things are going to be coming and going in chunks! it's less of a progressive, point-to-point thing, and more of a 'interconnnected blurbs somehow portray a story' thing, if that makes sense!
> 
> this chapter'll probably be the longest, but that might end up being incorrect! i'll plan to update again when i get some more of the fic written down. i have a good lead on how much content is available to be posted, but considering i usually die out on fics due to my habit of writing as i go, i'm going to try and develop a bit of a better process using this fic! 
> 
> kinda unrelated: while the title has no relation to the song, my mind kinda strayed to "a car, a torch, a death" by 21p as i was writing this! here's another link if you wanna listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOE2SxPXb9w
> 
> sorry for errors and typos, i have no beta and i'm not looking for one, so those kind of things are inevitable, regardless of how hard i work on trying to find all of 'em. on the note of weird things that'll probably make you slightly uncomfortable in my writing: the switching of tenses halfway through was intentional! the first half is more of a recap, while the other half is more up-to-speed... i was cringing while writing the first half due to awkward usage of tenses, but honestly, i had no idea what else to do. so, that's that. sorry. 
> 
> if you want to reach me on a different platform, i have a tumblr for my writing stuff:  
> galactic-goat.tumblr.com.  
> i pretty much just post links when i update, draw some stuff when the urge hits, and reblog writing-related stuff! i'm pretty slow with responding if you send a message, but i'd try my best!
> 
> finally, thank you for reading! :^D


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up with an itchy splint on your arm, dirt-covered bedsheets piled over your lap, and a scowl fierce enough to kill practically any cutesy woodland creature on sight.

A hand thrusts a granola bar in your face and you scarf it down before you can consider the possible consequences. Next comes a glass of lukewarm water, and you drink it more slowly, already grimacing at the roiling in your stomach from eating so quickly.

With food and water in your system, you lighten up just enough to hold a decent conversation with your rescuers, who have been taking turns camping by your bedside since you arrived in their house. Twelve hours ago. The world had ended two days prior, they inform you when you ask.

“I’m Eban, and that’s my cousin, Gina!” the boy introduces them, pointing to himself and then the girl.

“But…” you squint with skepticism already lacing your tone, “you called her ‘GG’ out by the roadside.” Eban looks winded for a moment, exchanging a glimpse of wide eyes with Gina.

“You remember that?” he awkwardly laughs, turning back to you, “That’s just a nickname…”

“Yeah, I call Eban ‘EB’ all the time, too!” Gina gives a toothy grin.

“Okay,” you offer reserved agreement. Despite your extensive amount of beauty sleep, you’re somehow still too worn out to pursue whatever weasel-y, behind-the-scenes cahoots are obviously going on. The hand that’s clutching your granola bar wrapper is shaking, ever so slightly.

“Anyways, what’s your name?” Eban nudges your uninjured arm, leaning on his own good-natured smile like a crutch.

“Carter,” you lie.

The world’s burning right outside Eban and Gina’s (heavily barricaded) door. Names probably mean a little more nowadays. You can’t have _everyone_ knowing it, if this global shithole is going to become the cutthroat world you’re almost positive it will be.

“Nice to meet you, Carter,” they chime together, a single unit. You feel mildly guilty, creeping behind their backs after what they’ve done for you, but everything’s up in the air, now. They could be evil, for all you know.

They blow that notion entirely out of the water in their next breath. They unexpectedly ask if you’d like to stay with them, so confident with their offer that you nearly do a spit take just to let them know how fucking nuts they’re acting. You ask for an hour to decide, and they nod with understanding eyes, closing the door on their way out with a gentle click.

You try to call Kankri first. Then you try to call Dad. Neither pick up, and you subject yourself to the same dialing tone for a grand forty-five minutes before you snap your phone shut and cram it into your pocket. You raise your voice slightly to bring Eban and Gina back into the room.

“I’ll stay,” you accept their offer, keeping your eyes trained to the wall across from you. There’s nothing more you can do for your family, besides hoping for the best.

 

...It’s too bad that hope has never been your strong suit.

  
_______________

 

They drag you on a supply run two weeks after they hauled your ass into their house like a stray cat. You’d fought to join them earlier on these trips, but they had always managed to one-up you with the whole ‘broken arm’ argument. They were right and all, but that didn’t mean that you hadn’t tried to raise hell to make them see otherwise. If there’s one thing you feel strongly about in tangoing (both in the literal sense, as well as the figurative), it’s that the participants should pull their own damn weight.

Either way, you’re here now, lodged in a rotting barn and fumbling through the piles of hay to find anything worthwhile. Your left arm is firmly strapped into both a splint and sling, right against your chest. Eban had insisted on excessive coverage and even gave you a stern lecture, bopping a knowing finger against your nose as he explained that “immobilization is _key_ , Carter!” Something tells you that his medical knowledge is equivalent to jackshit, and he’s merely making up over-the-top treatments that he _hopes_ are right. You’ll let him toy with your broken arm, but if it came to antibiotics, you’d probably let the infection kill you before he could.

Speaking of one half of the power duo, both Eban and Gina are surveying the farmhouse together, claiming the dead are more likely to be gathered there. Meaning only experienced gatherers could loot that place. You’re a little bitter about being booted outdoors, but it’s not like you _want_ to be going head-to-head with any corpses any time soon. Your job is fine, and you continue to root through the hay with a strange sense of determination, considering it’s such a fucking ridiculous task.

Your hand grazes the wooden handle of a tool, and you carefully draw it out.

Oh,  _hell_ yes _._

Something slams against the wall inside the farmhouse. Your head snaps to follow the noise, looking through the mouth of the barn and towards the side of the house.

“Aw,  _hell_ no,” you growl, pacing to the entrance in a low crouch. You have to halt by every corner and glimpse around before moving, but you reach the front door of the house soon enough.

You wrench the knob open by momentarily wrestling the tool into the crook of your arm. Then you scurry inside, kick the door closed behind you, and process the scene.

Eban is being crowded against the wall of the living room, rapidly swinging his weapon of choice, a hammer, from side to side. Two of the farm’s occupants, the wife and her son, are pawing at his sweat-stained shirt, teeth mashing like clockwork as they close in on him. Across the room, Gina aims the butt of her rifle at the eldest daughter’s head, then swipes the legs of the youngest girl’s out from beneath her, causing her to topple. Gina stomps on the girl’s head with remorse in her eyes. She squeaks out a “sorry!” before returning her attention back to the other girl. You spot a shadow looming behind her and sprint in its direction on a whim, tool sliding firmly back into your free hand.

The farmer has his jaws positioned behind her neck and is moving in for a bite. You try to put on a burst of speed as Gina gives another solid push to the daughter in front of her, oblivious.

“JADE!” Eban suddenly shouts, his eyes trained on the farmer. He clubs his attackers’ heads in with the mallet in a single motion, barrelling towards his cousin, but you beat him. You hook your sickle around the farmer’s neck and sharply tug it in your direction. Blood spurts across your face like a fucked-up Pollock painting. His head hits the carpet with a dull thud, his nose resting against your shoe.

Gina-- you mean _Jade_ finds the time to fumble her hunting knife out of her waistband, and she drives it through the girl’s forehead with all of her body weight, letting them both collapse onto the rug.

She waits for the struggling beneath her to subside, then finally pushes herself upright to her knees, shooting Eban an exasperated look.

“ _John_ ,” she grits out angrily. She brandishes the bloodied knife in his direction, an underhanded threat.

You can’t help but raise a brow at their offended stare-off, both mad over having blown each other’s covers. Of course they’d taken the same precautions as you with names, how the hell did this never occur to you? They grit out another exchange of “ _John,”_ “Jade!” and a snort leaps from your mouth like a convict escaping their prison. Reminded of your presence, they look over at you like deer caught in headlights, and you laugh again, egged on by their terrified expressions.

“Carter--” John starts, and another wave of amusement floods through your chest. _Jesus Christ, he used your fake name!_ You’re the goddamn chuckle factory, cracking it up exactly when the time is wrong, but _this is too fucking rich_.

“Carter,” Jade tries as you keep laughing, only pausing when a glob of your spit causes you to choke. You double over, hacking and barking still, letting your good mood ride out for as long as it can go-- happiness is a goddamn luxury these days.

“Oh my God,” you finally wheeze, standing up and wiping a stray tear from your eye. “We’re all such dirty fucking liars.”

  
_______________

 

Another week passes, and you find yourself up at an early hour, trying to beat the others to the bathroom to mop up some of the sweat and dirt that’s been sticking to you like a plague. Each of you only ‘bathes’ once every few days… As if running a nasty washcloth over the filthy portions of your body really constituted a bath. Either way, you stink like a toddler who has never wiped his ass, and any attempts at cleanliness give you a hygienic high that would be sad if you weren’t stuck in… Y’know. The fucking apocalypse.

You eagerly move to turn the faucet on, and instead of water, the pipes give an unholy groan, clattering and clanging as if Satan himself were sliding through them. Your entire body flails for a second, surprised, before you hurriedly turn off the faucet. You wait for thirty seconds. You timidly try turning it back on. The pipes go back to giving their spot-on imitation of two humpback whales having sex.

Goddamn it.

You quickly flip off the faucet again, exasperated and anxious.

“John?” you wearily pop your head past the doorframe to call him, hearing footsteps pacing towards you half a minute later.

“What is it, Karkat?” he mumbles as he reaches the bathroom door, raising his glasses to rub bleariness out of his eyes. He’d been running the second watch of the night, and had probably only managed to catch an hour of two of sleep, because of you. You internally berate yourself for not getting Jade instead.

“Just listen,” you mutter, switching the faucet on yet again. John’s expression darkens as the pipes resume their racket. He leans past you to jolt them back into silence. Whirling around, his next words are so pessimistic you almost swear that an imposter is prowling in John’s skinsuit before your very eyes.

“If that’s what I think it is, we’re all doomed.”

You stare at his rapidly receding back as he races to go get Jade.

  
_______________

 

It was almost as if the stars had aligned to arrange the worst possible outcomes for your group. First a horde of the undead to crowd you into a hidey hole. Then a drought to flush you out. If the current hell that is your life just so happened to be a board game played between you and fate, this last round would probably drive you to chuck the entire playing board out the nearest window, complete with a graceful middle finger extended in its general direction.

John and Jade have been tracing the walls of their home, eyes boring into each room and flipping through memories. You opt on packing up the contents of their well-stocked pantry while they say their goodbyes, marking up a stock list and dividing types of foods into backpacks. One for perishables, one for non-perishables. When they come downstairs to offer a hand, you send them back up to pack clothing and toiletries into another backpack. They deserve a little more time to wander, even under the guise of prepping.

Half of a day creeps by in relative silence, but the sound of you all shouldering your respective bags is thundering. You act as an usher as you lead the other two to the front door, quiet as a funeral procession.

“You have the best handwriting,” you curtly say as you hand Jade a half-filled can of spray paint.

“But you have the _worst_ ,” she counters, shoving it back towards you as she taps her nose knowingly. The motion lacks her usual spark of energy, and you have to hold back a wince at that realization.

“Fine,” you agree reluctantly. There’s something wrong about you being the one to do this-- you mean, it’s only been _your_ home for a few weeks, there’s not really a sense of finality behind it. But if they prefer otherwise, whatever.

Shooting a quick nod towards John, you both slide through the unblocked doorway. He hoists his hammer in front of him, pacing in a protective circle on the porch as you uncap the can. You hurriedly start to write on the generic red door itself, making the black lines jagged, uneven, and most importantly, rushed. It takes no more than a minute, and you step back to view your handiwork.

“Don’t dead, open inside?” John reads, his voice ringing over your right shoulder. You growl.

“No, you festering bucket of discharge,” John coughs in a vain attempt of hiding a chuckle over your insult. You roll your eyes, “It says, ‘Don’t open, dead inside!’”

“Sure,” he crookedly grins for the first time since you’d found out about the water supply. You’d chance a moment to bask in your comedic accomplishment if he wasn’t smiling _at your expense_.

“Laugh it up, fuck-for-brains, but this is what’s gonna fool the sentients and keep them out,” you casually shove him by his shoulder, back towards the doorway.

“‘Sentients?’ You make it sound like they’re a totally different species!” He twists the knob and lets Jade stroll through, silently coming to an agreement with her as to who should handle which sides of the couch nestled on the porch.

“I may be one, but you sure act like you aren’t,” you deadpan back. You toss the can to the floor and wrestle your sickle from your belt loop, taking up John’s old patrolling path and circling around with a weary eye as the duo carries the couch towards the door.

“Harsh!” Jade chimes, but she giggles anyways. They lower the couch, then slide it directly in front of the entranceway. It knocks against the wooden frame with a solemn _clunk_.

“Well,” you sigh, kicking the spray paint can to the foot of the couch, “I think that looks pretty ominous.” Jade pauses to wipe her glasses on her tank top before wiggling them onto her nose. She scrutinizes the scene once more, squinting her eyes and resting her gaze on each and every detail in sight.

“This’ll probably be enough to keep anyone out,” she approves. Then she clambers onto the couch and leans over to insert a key into the door’s lock, twisting it.

John’s hands are clenching as she backs away.

“That’s that,” she concludes. You can’t see past her heavily-decorated medical mask, but you know that she’s pursing her lips.

“Onwards,” you concur.

You follow her brisk pace down the porch steps, only pausing when you don’t hear a third pair of feet behind you. Turning to call for John, you find him staring back at his home, drinking in its features one last time. Before you can comment, he has turned around and is pacing by you. His words are obviously intended for himself, glum and quiet, but you hear them anyways.

“I thought wells were supposed to be a _reliable_ source of water.”

  
_______________

 

Three days slink by like a wounded animal, guilty and tense. You’re all northern-bound, aiming towards the nearest area that has a large supply of drinking water-- a lake, in this instance.

Sports drinks and an apple a day each keep you upright for the most part, but the sugar coating your tongue each time you take a sip is a frustrating substitute for honest-to-God water.

In terms of the walking corpses, encounters are surprisingly sparse. When they do occur, John and Jade take turns rushing to meet your guests before they can greet you. Half the time, they’ll be jogging back with blood-splattered palms before you even realize they’re gone. Of course, surprising you is not that much of an accomplishment these days.

...Something with you isn’t quite _right_ , per se. If your concentration was questionable before you had left, it’s something akin to a goldfish’s now; your memory’s in the same sinking boat. You try your best to use your brain like the prided, sharp machine it was before the world collapsed, but things always manage to wiggle through the cracks when your guard lowers marginally. You have handed things to the others and then forgot you had lent them in the first place; your focus occasionally soars skywards when you hear a corpse growl to your immediate left;  _you nearly left the backpack of toiletries and clothing behind when you had slid it off for a momentary breather._

Health-wise, you’re not faring any better. Whatever fatigue dogged you around the halls of the house, it’s only doubled in size since you took to open roads. Every action beyond placing one foot in front of the other feels like three years of sleep deprivation punching you square in the smarmy face. Sweat collects on your neck almost non-stop despite the fact that winter’s practically holding fall at gunpoint, demanding the season to step down. Dad had always warned you that scowls could be permanently engrained onto your face if you held them for too long, but the headache pulsing under your forehead’s skin is making it _really damn hard_ to mix your facial expressions up.

John and Jade have developed a system of glances and stares that they _think_ is successful in keeping you in the dark. There’s a mutual glance at each other when your breathing picks up, raspy and impossible to reel back in. There’s a synchronized swivel to stare when you stumble over your own feet. They aim their worry towards the ground when you snap at them, “Stop acting like I’m a senior citizen dying of the plague!”, unfortunately aware that the exclamation makes it seem _exactly_ like you’re a senior citizen dying of the plague.

Nights are by far the worst. You always volunteer for the starting shift, listening first to John and Jade settling into their impromptu tarp-tent, then later to the rustling of the leaves and grass as the wind blows. A moan may echo from a considerable distance away, but it always fades into obscurity, leaving you alone with your thoughts. And boy, are they shitty thoughts.

Navigating your thought process is like going through a haunted house. You start in a sparse waiting room, watching generated scene after gruesome scene of Kankri being ripped to shreds in his cubicle, of Dad preaching nonviolence to a crowd surging towards him, blood coating their still-pearly teeth-- At this point, it’s less a question of ‘if’ they’ll die, and more a matter of ‘how.’ Then you’d shuffle down the hallway, observing picture frames with images of your friends, blotchy, monochromatic, and slashed like a hit list. Doors would creak open sporadically, revealing scenes of you wheezing, shaking, zoning out, and fumbling with your headaches. Apprehensive, you’d make it to the last open doorway at the end of the hall, sweeping the black curtains to the side to see your reward in shining, brilliant letters.

 

**‘YOU’RE PROBABLY DYING TOO, FUCKHEAD.’**

 

You can’t sleep with that on your mind. Or maybe you just can’t sleep in general. Either way whatever illness or bodily degeneration you’re experiencing leaves you terrified that you’ll lay down with a functioning brain, and wake up craving someone else’s. When your watching shift is over you clamber into the tent, taking John’s now-empty spot, and stare at the tarp’s shifting walls. Your eyelids may drift down of their own accord, but they always find a way to snap back open, too frightened as to what could happen if you released the reins on your brain. You’ve become a pro at feigning sleep, leaving both John and Jade in the dark as they trade shifts.

The sun rises without fail and you feel like roadkill, mentally trampled with a few twitching limbs intact. John and Jade go through some mood-boosting morning ritual that you can’t be assed to remember in its entirety, too out-of-it to do more than deconstruct the tent and watch them fuss like a paradoxical set of mothers towards each other-- “John, brush your teeth,” “Jade! Comb your hair!” They usually end up looking far better-rested and more well-groomed than you. If you stumbled onto anyone else considered sentient in this grassy wasteland, they’d probably knock you flat on your ass with a bullet in your brain, assuming you were a corpse that was stalking them.

As your group moves to resume its trek every morning, you always have the same fleeting thought.

 

Living and surviving are two _entirely_ different things.

  
_______________

 

 

“This is terrible,” Jade breaks the silence of the camping ground with her uncharacteristically defeated sigh.

 

The fire flickers across her features as she sinks her teeth into the remnants of her apple, twirling her medical mask around her finger by its elastic string. John’s fiddling with his own mask too, momentarily settled in his lap as he takes a swig of a half-empty bottle of Gatorade. He doesn’t comment, obviously sharing the same train of thought. You cram your uneaten fruit back into the bag-- you’ve lacked an appetite all day-- and give them both a confused glare.

“Hold on, I thought _I_ was the designated pessimist.” Jade grimaces at your comment.

“I just feel like this is kind of… Unfulfilling? Hopeless?” she elaborates. You scoff.

“We all agreed that this was what was for the best!”

“I know!” she splutters back towards the ground, “But right now, it really doesn’t feel that way.” John reaches over to consolingly rub her back. The action is like a roadsign, nagging at you to pipe down on your aggressive tone. It’s not like shouting is a very progressive form of help; unfortunately, it’s all you really know how to do.

“Look,” you mumble, swiping your hand over the scars across your face, “I know this is difficult.” They both raise their eyes, surprised by the empathy in your tone as you continue, “But we can’t really go back now. We only have enough drinks to keep moving forward.”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s right, Jade,” John backs you up with a murmur.

“I _know_ ,” she grits out again. Her expression is detached as she loops her mask back over her mouth, moving to stand up.

“I’m going to head to bed,” she mutters, already halfway to the tent thanks to her fucking Amazonian legs.

“Jade!” you bark, scrambling upright. She tiredly turns to face you.

“What?”

“...Come here,” you gesture, awkwardly shuffling your feet.

“Sure?” she wearily replies, stalking to you. You offer your (free of a sling, yet still) splinted hand, internally screaming at yourself over how tacky and cringe-worthy this is.

“Grab it,” you demand. She silently slaps her own into your palm. You place your free arm onto her shoulder, having to stretch slightly to reach that high. You take a miniscule step forward, right in front of her respective foot. She stares.

“Step back with that foot,” you gruffly explain. She steps backwards. Offhandedly, she props her other hand onto your shoulder. You lead her through a round of clumsy waltzing, banking on whatever miniscule amount of knowledge you’d sucked up from your Dad’s earlier attempts at making you more polite-- also known as ‘manners school.’ Her eyes, the only visible indicator on her face, start glimmering with the dance, familiar excitement bleeding back into them over doing something new. John’s gaping by the side, the corners of his lips twitching as he watches you shriek over Jade suddenly stealing the lead from you.

“Jade, you assholish heathen-- John! Sing something for us!” you interrupt your own scolding.

“Like what?” he finally grins.

“Something classic; I know you told me you did piano,” you snap back, tripping as Jade accidentally stomps on your toes with a reserved chuckle.

“How much will you pay me?” he chirps.

“I’ll pay you with a wet bag of my own shit directly to your face and a punch to the extremities if you don’t start right now!”

He laughs and starts singing nonsense words, focusing more on the tune than the lyrics. Listening to him is a far cry from listening to a melodic choir, but his song gives you and Jade a pace to stumble to.

She throws her head back in amusement as you urge her to to start spinning; she spins _you_ instead, strong enough that she manages to dip you too. You pant, exhausted but still determined to keep time, twisting yourself upright and back into the proper position while falling into step.

“That should’ve been you,” you snark, stuttering as she surges to where your foot was.

“You would’ve dropped me!” she snorts, then immediately sends you into another spin, releasing your hand. John shuffles forward to steady you, laughing along with Jade as your vision momentarily swims.

“John’s turn!” Jade exclaims, back to her vibrant self, stepping back and picking up John’s tune. You automatically clamp your hand into his, your other on his shoulder. His free hand finds your waist, obviously not willing to go through the effort of reaching up to your shoulder. He doesn’t even give you time to lead; he immediately pushes you back with a cackle, pulling and pushing you to exactly where you need to be.

Your exclamations and complaints are overlooked as the waltz picks up a faster pace; you taper into concentrated silence as you work to keep up with John. He pulls the same move as Jade, whirling you so your arms are outstretched, but you clumsily twirl back towards him, ending with his chest to your back. Jade’s song turns into a laugh as you both hold the pose, both jutting your chins in dramatic angles.

“Wow,” she gasps, catching her breath, “this is too good.” You self-consciously step away from John, but he grabs you by the back and forces you both into a steep bow.

“We were both professional dancers in a past life,” he jokingly elaborates. She lets out a blinding smile, patting John on the arm before addressing you all as a whole.

“This was super great, but I probably should go get some sleep before my shift!” You both give a nod as she skips to the tent before pausing, turning back to you and John.

“Hey, Karkat?” she calls.

“Yeah?” you answer.

“Thanks.”

Satisfied, she crawls into the tent and quickly goes silent. You move to face John.

“You should probably go to sleep too--” you’re cut off as his hand winds into yours, pulling you back into the waltzing position. He moves slower now, letting you take your own steps and humming a new, quiet tune.

“Okay, sure,” you choke out, delayed in your reaction.

“What?” he chuckles, “We only got half the time that you and Jade got.”

“Didn’t realize I was the town’s dancing bicycle,” you grouse.

“Well,” he says, pulling you slightly closer by your waist to make the turns in your waltz easier, “everybody _did_ get a ride.” You remove your arm from his shoulder to cuff him on the ear.

“But anyways, I really appreciate what you did for Jade, dude,” he switches the subject with a sheepish smile.

“She’s our group’s fighter and ‘guiding light,’ or whatever-- if she feels like shit, then the both of us are goners,” you shrug. Also, it's hard to see her so discouraged, but it's not like you'd willingly  _shar_ _e_ that sort of sentiment.

“Aw, I thought _I_ was the fighter,” he mockingly pouts.

“She’s got an entire lifetime of self-defense under her belt thanks to your Grandpa, and half of your vision is compromised, ignoramus; that’s why you can only melee those half-rotted abominations,” you smirk back, flicking the cracked lense of his glasses.

“True, true,” he vaguely nods his head in agreement. “But going back to what we were talking about, I never realized you were so willing to dance.” Your brow furrows.

“I’m not.” You’ve never tried to breach your comfort zone for the sake of others before. The reality of your gesture is still sinking in, honestly. You’ll probably end up writhing in embarrassment a few hours from now.

He goes silent, contemplating your blunt words as you both take another set of steps. His overgrown mop of hair is sticking up in absurd angles, à la day-long bedhead. The gauze from your original meeting has peeled itself from his figure, leaving him with a few bandaids and a lot of leftover scars. He’s chewing his lip and looking to the side, but the shock of blue in his eyes is still visible, framed by his drooping eyelids.

Your steps are smaller, diminishing until you’re both merely swaying. Your chests bump and you finally note the way John’s sagging, just as exhausted as you. You nudge him, twitching in regret as his entire body goes rigid with alertness.

“Let’s sit down, numbskull. You’re falling asleep on me.”

“Mhmm,” he hums before you both settle down on the ground. Side-by-side, his head finds your shoulder. You can’t find it in yourself to shove him off of you.

You keep your eyes trained to the land around you, waiting for a breach in your content moment. Nothing emerges, and you let half of your attention stray to John, who’s still draping himself on your side. With the fire to your backs, you’re both surprisingly unbothered by the cold. The stars gleam, uninterrupted by city lights, and you can’t help but wonder if you would have ever seen them so clearly in your lifetime, if there hadn’t been an abrupt end to your world. It almost seems like a trade off; your comfortable life for a brilliant view of the stars. It’s still a considerably shitty break on your half of the deal, but no amount of bitterness is going to take away the fact that it _is_ an incredible sight. John’s gone fairly still, so you rap the side of his head with a knuckle.

“Did you finally pass out? You’ve gotta pay rent if you’re gonna sleep here, man.” John’s hand shoots over to cover your mouth.

“Shhh,” he mumbles, “don’t make me change my mind over being happy that you’re here.” His hand falls back to his side as he presses his face against your hip, where he’s slid down to. Nervous, yet simultaneously touched, you rest your left hand on his shoulder, going back to gazing up at the stars.

 

  
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Egbert.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know the beginning's really awkward, but i'm hoping the ending made up for it! 
> 
> i was writing and just thought, 'jade needs more love here' and thus.... welp. also, we're finally dipping our toes into the johnkat pool, yeehaw!
> 
> two things about the writing itself: 1.) john and jade's fake names are based off their chumhandles, and they used the handles themselves in the early days of the apocalypse for safety measures. 2.) yes, i did use a fucking walking dead meme.
> 
> i really hope you all are enjoying this as much i am while i'm writing it! i know there's a significant lack of excessive karkat snark, but i guess i was aiming for more emotions, less snark-- i hope you all understand!
> 
> the album doesn't exactly align with this fic, but i listened to a lot of son lux while writing this. here's a link to the 'lanterns' album!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXtW7eSm_zk
> 
> thanks for reading! :^D


	3. Chapter 3

The isolated gas station looks like the kind of scene that would give a serial killer heart palpitations. Glass is shattered across the pavement, and the wind whistles as it passes through the windows. Streaks of blood have crusted on the gas pumps, on the building’s walls, and across the entrance’s flooring, portions flaking off and leaving spots that look like healed-over scabs. Jade lets out a low whistle.

“It looks like whoever was here was pretty ferocious!”

“Slap a medal on that sentence, because that was the biggest understatement of the entire fucking year, Harley,” you deadpan. Clenching and unclenching the handle of your sickle, you feel marginally better. Only in terms of retching, though. No amount of weapon-wielding is going to clear out the feeling of impending doom this station has a goddamn surplus of.

“Well, we’ve got to scavenge to see if they left anything for us!” she taps the back of your calf with her boot’s toe, hands too occupied with her rifle to shove you anywhere. Picking up the cue, you shuffle your feet towards the entrance, intentionally moving slowly until both she and John are by your flanks.

Jade pokes the barrel of her rifle through the door, its shattered surface leaving only the metal frame behind. She sweeps it side to side once, then twice, before using her head to nod John closer to her side.

“Throw a shard of glass and see if anyone comes out.”

“Alrighty,” he murmurs, crouching and sweeping up a sizeable piece. He hurls it to the center of the area in front of the check-out counter, right in front of Jade’s line of vision. It cracks into several pieces and rings throughout the station. Nothing appears. They try again. Still nothing.

“I guess that answers that,” you mutter, stepping past them to skim over the products in one aisle. Call it false bravado, but you’ll be damned if they get the chance to laugh at you for cowering behind them the entire time you’re in this terrible place. You’ve got pride to preserve. You catch them shrugging behind your back before they follow suit, glass crunching under their heavy footsteps.

Maybe it’s because this station is located in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, but the pickings are surprisingly plentiful. You stroll between every shelf, slinging anything and everything edible or of possible use into your backpack. You have to remind yourself, ‘ _No, Karkat, none of us are experiencing mind-blowingly shitastic intestinal distress,_ ’ when your splinted hand finds itself wrapped around a box of laxatives.

Raising a brow, you note various boxes of tampons, all untouched.

“Jade,” you call, rubbing the back of your neck.

“Uh-huh?” she sings back. She’s reaching into the no longer functioning freezers for several bottles of water.

“Should I just grab all the boxes of tampons I can find?”

“Wha-- Oh!” She fumbles with the bottles she’s holding, stepping back as if she could detach herself from the spot where they’ve thudded against the floor. Her eyes are unusually large as she finally looks at you. You watch a strand of her hair start to be relentlessly twirled around her finger.

John comes racing at the sound of her surprised cry, skidding to a halt at your stare-down.

“I heard shouting and…” his eyes fall on the items on the shelf in front of you. “Oh,” he says.

“Oh?” you repeat.

“Yeah, I’ll leave you two alone,” his voice fluctuates as he shifts to step backwards; Jade catches him by his shirt’s collar.

“No! You can stay! I want you to stay,” she exclaims at a lightening-fast pace. ‘ _Why is she suddenly acting like she needs horse tranquilizers?_ ’ you ask yourself.

“I, uh, don’t need the tampons,” she hurriedly explains, bending back down to start collecting the water bottles on the floor. John scrambles to help her. You give a bewildered shrug, awkwardly standing still and at a loss as to what else you should do. She uprights herself to look you in the eye.

“I have a dick,” she curtly explains before tightly smiling and pacing to the counter. She throws her bag from over her shoulder, and starts to cram bottles into it.

“Oh,” you breathe, watching John also flash a smile towards you before running to join her.

You give another directionless shrug, then make one more round around the station for supplies. Finding nothing else beneficial, your mind urges you to check the last unscoured area.

“I’m going to look around the bathrooms,” you raise your voice so they can hear. They give short “sounds good”s and “okay”s in response. The glowing promise of a renewed stock of toilet paper is calling your name, and your asscheeks are practically clapping with joy over the possibility. The bathrooms are located at the back of the shop, two wooden doors with their respective signs.

“I finally understand why those Charmin bears would probably describe wiping their asses as ‘orgasmic’ if they weren’t intended for the general public,” you muse to yourself, pushing the handle to the men’s bathroom down and opening the door. Your lungs fail you as the overwhelming smell of death floods out, followed by the decaying mug of a corpse.

“FUCK!” you bellow, falling backwards and struggling to slide your sickle out from your belt. The corpse trips and sprawls in front of you, his hand flying to your knee as support.

“I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead, holy fucking shit on a flaming tricycle, I’m _so_ dead,” you spit out in one breath, alertness that’s been missing since you left the house finally rushing in and making you hyper-aware of how ugly this situation is. The corpse is shifting his weight, pushing down on your knee as you kick frantically. Your hand finally is rewarded with its struggle, and you yank out your sickle, moving to swing before fear can turn you into even more of a frothing mess.

Your sickle whistles through the air, but the corpse is long gone. He’s tripping his way rapidly towards John and Jade, who are already sprinting to meet you. You let out another worried shout before they bludgeon the shit out of the attacker. Jade drives the butt of her gun down into his chest with more ferocity than a cage fighter, and the sound John’s hammer is making rings-- mainly because he’s punched a hole directly through the downed body’s head, and is hitting the floor instead. They stop their tirade to breathlessly stare at you.

“Were you bit?” Jade wheezes from the distance.

“N-No,” you stutter, slowly sliding your sickle back under your belt. You hug your arms to your chest.

Your quiet, to-the-point answer seems to send them into a panic.

John surges across the distance while Jade stays back.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he whisper-shouts as he crouches, tugging your chin up so that you’re looking at him rather than curling into the fetal position.

“One ‘hey’ was enough,” you reply in a shuddery voice, parodying your first conversation with him. He doesn’t acknowledge the weak attempt at a joke. Sliding your backpack straps off, he then moves to your side and tries to pull you upwards.

“We’re going to go into that bathroom and clean you up,” he coaxes you to use your legs, not commenting on how he’s practically holding all of your weight.

“I’m going to try and find a car to use,” Jade interrupts John; she receives a nod from him before running first to grab your bag, then to leave the station.

“You’re acting like I morphed into a vomit-geyser when I’m perfectly fine,” your teeth chatter as you finally argue back. He gives you an unconvinced look.

“If you haven’t puked, that means you have stuff in your stomach to throw up. I’m not going to be cleaning your chunks off of me any time in the future,” he takes a lurching step forwards, shouldering you along.

“Screw you,” you hiss with hardly any sting. Your adrenaline rush has abandoned you, leaving you in a state almost as deplorable as the corpses’ on the tiled floor. John grunts instead of answering.

Propping you up against the wall by the door, he does a quick check to ensure the room is empty before guiding you inside. You hold yourself upright by the sink’s ledge as he forages around for toilet paper. You let out a congratulatory cough when he holds up two rolls, looking mildly triumphant.

“Wash up if you can, Karkat. I’m going to put these in one of the bags and then check in the girl’s bathroom for anything,” John gently says before using his hip to push the handle down and nudge the door open.

You sway by your spot until the door clicks shut before jolting forward to retch violently into the sink. There’s nothing but bitter bile, considering your lack of an appetite has spanned the past three days, now. The aftertaste is almost enough to make you double over for round two of heaving up your stomach, so you turn on the faucet and wait for the water to run clear before drinking directly from the sink. It tastes like rust and disappointment, but at least it’s cold.

Swiping a wet hand across your cheek while looking into the mirror, your eyebrows fly up when you can see the streak of clean skin beneath the days upon days of dirt. It’s almost like watching a live action vacuum cleaner demonstration, except this is actually exciting enough that you’d mimic a small dog by running around in circles while pissing yourself if you could.

John deliberately opens the door slowly, like he’s trying to keep a feral animal calm. Ugh. At your lack of a reaction, he makes his way to stand by the sink.

“Feeling better?” he asks, his voice still disgustingly soft.

“Maybe,” you pause your frantic face scrubbing to give a choppy answer. You don’t want him to keep this pitying act up, it’s only raising your blood pressure to dangerously high levels.

“At least you haven’t thrown up anywhere,” he hums, patting your back. You inhale some water when you snort. At least you duped him.

When his hand remains on your back, you halt yet again to glare at him.

“Filthy paws off, Egbert; can’t you see that I am _trying_ to take a shower?” You accentuate your point by undergoing movements that would make a contortionist faint, all for the sake of shoving your entire head under the faucet. John gives a tired laugh.

“You can’t see how much dirt is going down that drain, dude.”

“Well, obviously you didn’t catch the memo,” you drawl as the water trickles through your hair and into your ears, “I’m the world’s first mobile compost heap. There’s enough horseshit and orange peels in me that I was powerful enough to grow legs.” John slowly shakes his head with a disbelieving expression.

“Where does all of that nonsense come from, you weirdo?” he questions.

“From the same place that urges me to uphold a constant flow of verbal diarrhea directly through my word hole.”

“Nice.”

“I try.”

He swipes his hand under the tap’s stream, rubbing the water against the side of his face with a thoughtful look. His eyes flicker from the dirty wall, to the sink, then to you.

“You know, I’ve been trying to connect some dots,” he quietly starts again, suddenly all too serious.

“How’s that going for you? Personally, I’ve been stumped with the building blocks,” you shakily smirk back, ignoring the tremors still running down your arms. He kicks the side of your leg.

“Shut up, I’m being contemplative!”

“Alright,” you roll your eyes. “Then enlighten me. What are you thinking about?”

He pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, furrowing his brow before making firm eye contact.

“Do you have anything weird in your medical history?” he asks. You blink.

“Uh. Not that I know of?”

He slowly nods, biting the edge of his thumb as he processes your answer.

“I mean, there’s obviously something going on with you health-wise, dude,” he curtly elaborates.

“The vultures are practically already circling above my withered away husk,” you scoff, forcing down the sink’s handle with a little more force than necessary.

“Don’t say that,” he quietly snaps. You shrug.

“So, what about it?” you prompt him. “I don’t think whatever’s happening is really a medical anomaly, though _of course_ it could only be assed to make an appearance when those dead fuckers refused to stay in the ground long enough to become worm chow.”

“Don’t you think it’s kind of fucked up that the symptoms only popped up when things got really nasty, Karkat?” He stares at you without blinking, unconsciously leaning forward. “Doesn’t it seem even the slightest bit suspicious?”

“Yeah,” you mutter back after a pause, “but it’s not like I’m running around trying to prod my hands into people’s ribcages and allow half of the skin on my body to decompose, Egbert. Maybe I just caught a whiff of the area’s hottest outbreak of a plain old viral infection the morning things went down?” John shakes his head.

“I’m no certified medical professional, but I don’t think it’s tough to assume that your symptoms were influenced by whatever’s causing people to become zombies. And I think those symptoms are making you invisible to them.” At his statement, you shift your weight to the side, turning to face him directly while leaning on the sink.

“What ludicrous notion wiggled its way past your incredibly thick skull and made you think such an idiotic thing,” you flatly respond. He huffs at your skepticism.

“Look, I took a small class or two that covered a little bit on diseases, and I don’t think it’s entirely out of the question that an infection in your system could trigger an inherited disease.”

“Are you implying that I’ve got whatever the smashed-up corpse outside this room has, coursing through my pathetic blood vessels?” You shudder, visualizing toxic sludge mucking up your veins.

“Well, you were outside for two solid days, totally uncovered,” he muses, subdued enough that it almost seems like he’s talking to himself. “You probably breathed in any fishy air particles that came by. A ton of nasty shit probably fell into your mouth, too-- Ugh, it’d probably be safer to lick a public bathroom’s toilet seat than to make out with you.”

“Watch it,” you growl. He stops to self-consciously tug the collar of his shirt before continuing.

“What I’m saying is, you’ve had plenty of chances to be exposed. Jade and I whipped out medical masks right when things started getting bad and everything we drink these days comes from a bottle, so whatever risks we’re taking are minimized. But you? There wasn’t a point handing you a mask considering it was almost guaranteed that you had caught it by the time we found you. If that ‘it’ was actually something to catch. And it was airborne. Or possibly blood-borne.”

“Whatever measures you’re taking, they’re probably working,” you mumble. “Neither of you have had similar symptoms to mine.” John tilts his head with some concern scrunching up the corners of his eyes.

“No… I think that there’s no surefire way to know if we have it or not,” he reluctantly answers. “We’d probably have to be dead to know that.”

“So, what in the name of Jesus’s hairy left testicle are you going on about?” you grouse. This game of back-and-forth is getting tedious to the point that you almost have the urge to rip out your own skeleton and die on the spot. Your conversation is only yet another friendly reminder that you’re boned. Pun intended.  

“Were you even listening when I mentioned ‘inherited disease,’ man?” he chuckles. “Sometimes diseases are triggered by outside infection. Maybe the symptoms are from something you already had, but never really showed any signs of having.” You chew on your lip for a moment.

“When you talk like this, I can almost convince myself that you actually _do_ know what you’re talking about when it comes to medicine.” John flashes a pleased grin at your comment.

“Aw, thank you--”

“--When you were trying to treat my arm, I thought you were chock-full of hot air and badly-sliced bargain-bin bologna.” His grin drops.

“I’m in the middle of a class on biomedical science, Karkat, give me some damn credit!”

“Whatever you fucking say, Mr. MD,” you cross your arms with a smug half-smile.

You watch him wave his limbs around in mock aggravation for a moment before he abruptly runs out of steam. He trudges over to bump you sideways, giving himself better access to the sink. Momentarily teetering, you wobble back into a steady stance before moving to brace your shoulder against the bathroom wall. John busies himself with running rough hands over his grimy scalp, massaging water in and putting shampoo models to shame with the blissed-out expression he’s making. You clear your throat _right_ when you start to fear that he’s going to pop a boner.

“Sorry!” he yelps, pacing a step backwards from the sink guiltily. “You should’ve warned me that the water was so cold and nice.”

“I’m sure if I told you that the faucet shat out motor oil and fermented piss you’d _still_ enjoy bathing in it-- as long as it was cold,” you keep your face strictly blank.

“Ya got me.” He bends back down to resume his own personal grooming, and you train your eyes to the wall behind him.

“Egbert, as much as I’d like to heed Snoop Dogg’s biblical warning and drop this conversation like it’s hot, there’s one tiny explanation that you still owe me,” you rasp as a long-gone sentence in your discussion tickles your brain. Maybe it’s actually registering to you, at long last.  

“Mmmm?” He scrubs the uncracked lense of his glasses with his unusually pristine thumb under the water.

“What do you mean my symptoms are making me invisible to the crotchrots wandering around.”

He does a weird sort of wiggle in response. You think he’s trying to show his uncertainty, but it looks more like he shat himself.

“Eh,” he finally speaks up, “it’s kind of a really weak guesstimation.”

“Humor me, blockhead.”

“Fine, but a ‘please’ would be appreciated!” he shoots you a condescending look, to which you stick out your tongue. You’re definitely the mature one here, there’s not an iota of doubt about it. John picks at his nails for a moment, flipping through his thoughts before perking back up, clearly settling on a starting point.

“We chucked glass into the station to lure out any zombies, right?” he chimes like an enthusiastic school teacher.

“Right,” you play along.

“You’d say that the shattering was pretty darn loud, right Karkat?”

“Sure.”

“The station’s small enough that we’d be able to hear any scratching on the bathroom door though, so even if the only person here was in the bathroom and we _know_ he could hear the glass shattering, why didn’t we notice any banging or scratching? I mean, usually the corpses are pretty aggressive when they know food’s nearby.” You can’t grace him with an answer, mainly because his rhetorics are starting to wrap around and mummify your brain. He interprets your silence as cluelessness.

“It’s because there was no reaction!” He leans backwards over the sink’s edge and runs a hand through his wet and greasy hair. When you know for certain that his eyes are trained on the ceiling you sneak a glimpse of the band of the dark skin peeking out between his shirt and waistband… Wait what. What are you doing.

“The zombies aren’t using sound to find food sources! And sight’s out of the picture too, considering most of them have eyes that have clouded over!” he exclaims, whipping his face downwards to look at you while you yank yourself into a more casual, less sketchy position. The ever-present sweat streaking down your back feels a little less unnatural as you urge your face not to heat up. Pay attention to this obviously important breakthrough, pinhead. Stop ogling like a nineteenth century skeeveball jacking it off to a woman showing her ankles, shitmongerer.  

“Uhm,” you reply, ever the conversational extraordinaire. His gaze traces your bewildered expression, waiting for an astonished reaction that’s never going to come. Goddamnit, you wish you managed to keep your head in the game with this conversation. John casually leans over to ruffle your hair, more amused than disappointed.

“That probably sounds a lot like irrelevant mumbo jumbo when I don’t elaborate, huh.”

“Not everyone has the lightning-paced conclusions of Sherlock fucking Holmes when it comes to something that seems kind of unimportant,” you mutter, kicking your own ass internally. His crooked grin creeps back out. He hops over to nudge you further into the wall you’re leaning on, then stations himself beside you.

“It’s elementary then, dear Watson,” he resumes in a sing-song voice. You grimace at his fake accent, to which he casually flips you the bird.

“My guess is that the corpses are using some sort of internally-related targeting method. Like, uh, they can sense a pulse, or use your body heat to track you down. But you’ve gotta be in a certain range.”

“How the fresh hell would that even work.”

“I dunno. Call up a zombie specialist, not me.” You shoot him a side glare, which he pointedly ignores.

“But, like, if it was biology-related, it’d explain why they still react to me and Jade, but not you! You’re undergoing some kind of illness that’s messing with your internal state, but Jade and I are perfectly healthy. There could be a lot of other factors, but it’s the only really obvious difference that I can think of.”

“Y’know, I was ignored _before_ my symptoms showed up-- the day the world plummeted down the shithole, I wasn’t sick and I still got overlooked,” you argue. John rocks on his heels for a moment before finding a rebuttal.

“Whatever disease got the dead to rise probably was around before anyone knew it; it takes like, a solid amount of time before the results are expressed. So maybe it actually snuck into your immune system early, your inherited disease was triggered but hadn’t had a chance to _totally_ screw you over, and you were ignored when things started getting ugly despite not feeling sick! Tada!” He flutters his hands in a grand, showy gesture, and you grab them to pull them back down to his side.

“You won that point, but your idea still has about as much legitimacy as a half-baked shit souffle.”

“Believe me or don’t believe me, I just want to at least _pretend_ I have answers,” he shrugs, a gesture too casual considering there’s some sort of hopelessness etching its way onto his face. “Otherwise, I don’t know how you’re still here, having this conversation with me even after having such a freakishly close encounter.” You shuffle at the worry in his tone as he sighs, “I’m just relieved that you’re alive, dude.” Spluttering, you go rigid as he pulls you into an unprompted hug.

Your eyes trace a path of dribbled blood on the cracked flooring behind him, black, red, and brown scraped and slicked where footsteps slid through. The bloodstain on your pant leg’s knee feels like it’s seeping into your skin. You nervously swallow.

 

“...Yeah.”

  
________________

 

You both find Jade propped against a car as John helps you limp outside. She’s the picture of contentment, with your backpacks to her left, a rifle propped on her shoulder, and a fucking dog curled up on her right side. That’s right. _A fucking dog._ With patchy white fur and triangular ears perked upright, it’s leaning into her touch like it’s starving for attention. If you slapped a rug under them they’d look downright domestic.

“Harley,” you call out, “what sort of Dark Age bullshit magic did you use to summon a dog out here?”

She eyes you with a tinge of weariness (‘ _Huh?_ ’) before snapping back into her sun-shiney act, giving a spot behind the dog’s ear a firm scratch with a smile aimed in your direction.

“He was wandering around in the field. I think he realized we’re normal and decided he needed a buddy! So, he ran out and said hi while I hotwired our car!” She moves to stand, jostling the dog’s head as she dusts off her lap. The dog lethargically blinks before clambering up too, ribs jutting out as he stretches. You frown.

“That’s another mouth to feed, y’know.” She’s already waving you off.

“He can fend for himself!” She bends forward and gently grabs his snout, pulling his mouth open to show blood coating his chipped teeth. The dog is disturbingly indifferent. “See?” she asks, “He catches his own food.” You glance to see John looking slightly nauseous. You elbow him.

“You pulverize corpses on a daily basis with a blunt, heavy object, but some bloodied-up teeth are making you queasy?” you muse. He shoots you a sheepish look before he shoulders you back, pacing ahead to the car. You stalk behind, noticing Jade’s eyes flitting between you and her task of picking up the backpacks. Silently, you open the side door of the black SUV, waiting until she’s placed the bags in the back before shutting it. John lets out a quiet “wow” from near the driver’s seat. Curiosity drags you to peek over his shoulder, at the ignition’s wiring, which is effectively rigged up.

“Damn,” you breathe, “Jade is honestly a Jill of all trades.” You see her shrug out of the corner of your eye.

“Heh, I’m more of a Jill of a lot of pretty specific trades… I just got lucky in how they’re trades that are surprisingly handy!” She twirls her rifle over her shoulder and into her hands, skipping back towards the station.

“Get settled, guys!” she says, peering over her shoulder. “I’m gonna go enjoy my bathroom privileges, considering you both got to. So, I’ll be a few minutes. Go ahead and bond a bit with Bec, maybe!” With that, she jogs through the doorway and vanishes. Shrugging, you haul yourself into the back seat and John settles into the driver’s seat. When Bec leaps into the spot beside you, you silently curse the higher beings of the universe for not providing a complimentary gas mask with the damn mutt.

“...She already named him,” John wheezes.

“We’re going to die of asphyxiation if we don’t slather him in lotion and car scenters,” you yelp as Bec slaps you across the face with his tail. John snorts.

Five minutes later, Jade opens the shotgun door and finds you laying on the car’s floor in the back, effectively booted from your spot by the hairy white asshole lounging across the spots not occupied by your bags.

“If I suddenly show up one day, coated in blood and white fur with a large amount of meat, just assume I killed a yeti,” you grit out. There’s an stiff pain in your spine that now accompanies your ever-present headache.

“Judging from how the tables have turned in the past few minutes, I think Bec would be able to kill you first,” John says from the front. Jade nods in agreement.

“Thanks for the support, assholes.”

________________

 

You all cheer when the wires are tapped together and the engine revs to life; the fuel tank is breathtakingly full. You’re all crammed and packed effectively, seatbelts on and dizzy with excitement over not having to trek for the next few miles before your destination.

“Here we go!” John howls as he slams the shift to ‘Drive.’

As everyone’s head slams back with intertia as you speed forward, you think you can finally understand why dogs think car rides are so damn exhilarating.

  
________________

 

Less than an hour later, you park on the gravel path directly by the lake. Houses are lined a slight distance from the water’s edge, their windows dark and vacant. You all quickly agree on a house to raid, noting the solid wooden doors and a lack of ominous signs on a two-story, faded green house. The slamming of the car’s doors disturbs the afternoon haze, leaving an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach as you all trudge your way to the building.

“New water source, here we come,” you murmur. The lake is this community’s water provider, so any place here has plenty of tap water, ripe for the taking.

John loans a bobby pin from Jade, quickly making work of the back door’s lock. He cracks open the door and lets her poke her rifle’s barrel through. Her arms stay tense as she peers through the opening for half a minute, eventually using a hip to knock the door open entirely. She powerwalks her way in, stopping by each entryway and shoving doors aside to stare into each room. You and John quietly follow.

The hairs on your arm are rising, mainly because this house looks so _undisturbed_ , like a peaceful slice of the past forcefully dragged into the fucked up future. There are magazines neatly piled on a coffee table. Plates are carefully arranged in a drying rack by the sink in the kitchen. The polished hardwood floors dully gleam thanks to the reflection of the outdoor light.

“Might as well start foraging,” John breaks the silence, looking just as sad as you feel. You and Jade nod.

The pantry’s been stripped clean by someone else, alongside most of the toiletries and clothes. Empty-handed, you slowly make your way to where John and Jade are talking in low voices. Bec’s nails click as he twines around Jade’s legs.

“I think the family packed up and ran while they could,” you interrupt them, approaching with a defeated slouch. “What now?”

“We could check out another house,” John offers, somewhat reluctantly. You can tell that he’s drained from wandering this place’s halls. This house seems to have held kids, pets, loving parents, memories. You just can’t imagine them surviving out there. Your overly active imaginations are sucking you both dry.

“We’ll do a second search here first, to be thorough,” Jade suggests; you catch the tail end of her stare at you as she turns to John. Weary and... fearful? Something in your head finally clicks.

“Wait, wait, _wait_ ,” you cut in, shuffling around until she has to look you in the eye again.

“What?” she asks, taken aback.

“Jade, you’ve been giving me weird looks since the entirety of the gas station fiasco,” you start with a flat voice.

“I have? Sorry!” she worriedly laughs, but you’re already reaching out to hold a finger in front of her mouth.

“Don’t fucking apologize!”

“Uh?”

“Look…” you draw your hand back and run it over your face. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m going to spin around and stab you in the back with a rusty kitchen fork.”

“I…?” She blinks. “Oh.”

“I get that there’s some distrust in your system, Harley; I kind of dragged you into sharing something you might’ve not wanted to share. So, sorry for being a crusty dickscab on that matter.”

“No, no!” she’s waving a consoling hand at you, “It was more like I forgot you didn’t know, and explaining felt kind of weird considering we’ve known each other for a bit!”

“Either way, I should’ve cleared the air so we didn’t have to shove ourselves through this whole ‘awkwardly sharing our emotions at an inappropriate time’ ordeal and you didn’t have to spend so much time worrying,” you rasp. “So, don’t think that I’m thinking any differently of you. If I do something unacceptable, you reel your fist back and punch me in the greasy face, then tell me to quit it. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agrees, twirling a stray strand of her hair with a few traces of surprise still frequenting her features. John’s tiredly smiling from the sidelines.

“So,” he jumps in.

“So,” you grunt.

“Anyone else just kind of want to call it a day? I think we’re all about ready to collapse, and the king-sized bed upstairs is calling my name. Like, seriously. Holy fuck. I could sleep on a bed, guys. _A bed_.” You and Jade exchange a look.

“Why not?” she deflates, meandering over to sink face-first into the nearby couch’s cushions.

“I think I at least hit my near-death quota for the day,” you chip in, eyeing your bloody pant leg. “Honestly wondering why the dad had to be an asshole and take every pair of pants he owned-- I need a pair just as badly as I need a year long nap.”

“Well, they were _his_ pants,” Jade reasons. She lets out a quiet ‘oof’ as Bec jumps up to join her on the couch, settling directly on her back.

“He’s still a dickbag,” you grouse, though the barely-concealed amusement in your voice makes it seem less aggressive. “I’ll lock up the doors, then I’m going to go lay down, too.”

...Not that you’re going to sleep, or anything. Sleep is out of the question.

“Alright,” they both say. Jade goes silent, and John’s footsteps eventually vanish as he settles into one of the beds upstairs.

Locking up the house, the motions feel so foreign that you pause to pinch yourself, hissing at the twinge of pain. This entire situation feels like it’s resting on thin ice, with a dream-like quality that lures you farther outward from solid land, only to notice the cracks before the floor gives out and you plummet into the depths of the ice water. Frankly put, if you had to choose a way to go, it certainly wouldn’t be drowning.

But you’re just so _entranced_ , goddamnit. It reminds you of Sunday mornings before church, where Dad would wait for you at the bottom of the stairs, offering a clap on the back before meeting Kankri in the kitchen. You see yourself standing at the doorway and being forced backwards and trampled as your guests flooded in-- Aradia, Tavros, Sollux, Nepeta, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan, and Feferi. All of them were assholes. All of them were your friends, in their own skewed and awkward ways. Your hand stutters on the knob as you think back to that morning, plunging outside without even a second glance behind you, barrelling off to the bus. It’d been you against the world in a figurative sense, that day. Now, it’s you against the world in a sense that is far too fucking literal.

When you finally crawl into the bed to keep your glazed eyes fixed on the eggshell blue wall by your side, it takes several hours to will the lump in your throat away.

 

________________

 

Something is plodding its way across your side. Your stare refuses to shift, so you don’t know what.

A warm tongue draws a slobbery line across your cheek, and you cringe.

“Bec,” you growl. He shoves his cold nose in your ear, repeating the offense all across your face until you shoot upright to bat him away.

“Keep this up and I’ll have to start looking for recipe books!” you snap. Bec slides from the bed with a solid _thunk_ and trots to the doorway. “Seriously!?” you shout at him, “All that trouble and you’re not even sticking around?” He pauses and looks at you, waiting.

“Oh.” You pick your boots up from the ground and yank them onto your feet. Then you grab your sickle, moving to slowly shuffle behind. “This’d better be worthwhile, mutt,” you sharply whisper as you follow. You creep past John’s room, where you hear light snores tiptoeing from under the door. The stairs creak and you wince each time you shift your weight, only allowing yourself to breath once you’ve reached the bottom. Passing the couch, your mouth twitches in a smile as you note how Jade’s curly hair is slung everywhere, clinging to her face, her back, her arms, hell, even the furniture itself. Bec finally stops in the kitchen, staring at the sink.

“Water?” you ask him. “I guess we all need to hydrate sometimes, huh.” You file through the cabinets, grabbing a ceramic bowl before reaching for the sink’s handle. Right before you turn it on, you freeze.

There’s a sticky note attached to the faucet. Your hands are slightly shaking as you peel it off, holding it closer to your face.

“DO NOT DRINK.”

The black lines are thick and urgent. You squint, urging the note to give a firm explanation. Turning on your heel, you and Bec stride upstairs and look at the sinks in the two bathrooms available. Again, the sticky notes are present, this time in searing red.

“DO *NOT* DRINK!!!!” and “DON’T.”

You need to tell the others.

“John! Jade!” you bark, listening to John’s door opening as you rush downstairs to find Jade blearily staring at you and Bec.

“Look at these,” you quickly hand the notes around, giving no time for questions.

They both react the same way you did, squinting and studying, trying to read between the lines. You let them come to their own conclusions, pacing back in forth and muttering to yourself.

“Why, why, _why_ …” you pause. You accidentally catch the others’ eyes.

“Karkat--” John starts, seeing the distress scratched onto your face. You sprint to the back door, the one facing the lake. Slamming into the door and fiddling with the lock, John and Jade are directly behind you and bombarding you with their confusion.

“Karkat!”

“Karkat, hold on for a second!”

You wrench the door open, sliding through and hurling it shut behind you before racing to the water’s edge. They can stay behind if they want, but you absolutely can’t stop. You need confirmation.

Weakened wakes slap the shore, and the blue-green water glimmers, somewhat disorienting. The scene is strangely serene, like the mild, soothing end credits of one of your movies you used to watch somewhat religiously. You wonder if your guess really was simply too twisted and disturbing to be real-- it’d make sense; you’re a hop skip and a fucking super jump away from mentally sound, sometimes. Half a relieved sigh has forced its way out of your throat when you spot it, bobbing aimlessly a small distance from you.

 

A severed arm.

 

Suddenly, other objects are as glaringly easy to spot, and your skin crawls as you continue playing I Spy: Lake Edition. Small intestines, feet, kidneys, detached jaws, a torso, a heart. Coagulated blood and froth, churning with the wind’s direction. Bloated bodies, floating and seemingly as insignificant as ocean debris.

“We’re so… Sorry.” John’s voice wavers.

“What?” you choke, turning to glance at him. He’s not staring at the lake. There’s a wooden plaque on the ground, writing slapped on with sloppy black paint.

“We’re so sorry,” he tries again, “for all the lives lost on this day. We only pray forgiveness under the eye of whoever watches over this world, alongside the countless families deprived of a chance at survival. We had no malicious intent, we merely did what had to be done. Dear God, we’re so sorry.” His voice tapers out, too strained to comment.

“The neighbors…” Jade says in a stunned voice from behind, “they massacred all the corpses and threw them in the lake.”

“It wasn’t a risk to the drinking water,” you murmur to yourself, trying to grasp the logic behind such a twisted action. “Because there wasn’t any drinking water to use, anymore. Society collapsed. There was no one to work at the treatment plants.” The water seems to glint red, and the burning in your chest reminds you that no amount of reason can excuse such a morbid move.

“This is so wrong,” John shakily spits. You hear his feet clunking several steps backwards. “Right when we thought things were okay, right when I thought that maybe there were some safe places in the world--” his pace quickens.

 

A guttural moan oozes into your ear.

 

“JOHN!” Jade screams in worry.

 

You’re already whirling around, desperately stretching forward to reach out and stop what’s coming. Your palms are empty and your limbs are clumsy but you push anyways, fingers curling around the breeze of the corpse's momentum and--.

 

 

 

  
An ear-splitting wail turns your blood to ice and your bones to stone.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [throws headcanons, sexual tension, and cliffhangers into the air] [dances like a white suburban dad at a neighborhood BBQ as they flutter down] yeah! makin it rain up in this joint! 
> 
> anyways:
> 
> fun fact. i write dialogue by slamming my face into the keyboard and rubbing my nose against it really violently for like five minutes straight. yeah. that's why it's kinda awful. i was screaming too because holy shit is that a giant ass info dump haha WHOOPS
> 
> if you can't tell, i've got a few big issues with this chapter... but i really wanted to post. so. yep. this thing is getting pretty dang extensive-- i'm writing it in a singular google doc, and this last update placed me onto page 40! yikes!
> 
> moving on for the usual: sorry for typos because i don't have a beta but i'm not searching, and yada yada. 
> 
> finally, thanks for reading! :^D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for gore and death.

It’s been three seconds by the time you reach the corpse’s side.

 

Seven when you get your sickle out from under your belt.

 

Nine when you get a proper grip on the handle.

 

Ten when you lob the abomination’s head off with a swift, relentless swipe that decorates the dirt and your face with dripping, disgusting red.

 

Twelve when you crouch down and drop your sickle to look at the damage.

 

Seventeen when you realize the inevitable.

 

Jade’s not going to make it.

 

John’s laying on his side less than two feet away, winded from being shoved out of the zombie’s path. His cheek is pink with scraped skin and his eyes are blown wider than canyons as he stares at his cousin.

“Jade,” you bite out, hand flying out when she tries to staunch the blood flow from the base of her neck with a palm that’s shaking like a tin shack in a hurricane. “Stop, stop, don’t do that, I’ll do it.” You wrestle her arms down with one hand before moving both of yours to press against the gaping bite. She lets out a long, agonized whine in response to the pressure and your stomach plummets directly into the deepest, firiest pits of hell, because _oh fuck_. Her hands dart back up and slap over yours, prompting you to snap, “Jade, Jade! You’re shaking too much, you’ll just end up irritating and fucking over the wound more-- let me do this, you keep your hands down.” A testimony to being the embodiment of willpower, Jade slowly eases her hands away, though they twitch back to the spot like attack dogs not quite willing to give up the fight once before she yanks them back down entirely.

“S-Sorry,” she gasps, and it’s such a shallow sound, so drained that you want to grab an oxygen pump and force the air back into her, give her back the self-assured voice that her vocal chords have seemed to have dropped somewhere in the soil.

“Don’t talk, just concentrate on staying awake,” you hurriedly say back. “We’re going to fix you up.” She grunts in agreement, but the look in both of your eyes is a dead giveaway that neither of you are convinced. You see John shifting upright in your peripheral motion and your gaze snaps to him.

“Stop dawdling like a fucking infant and go get a first aid kit!” you spit. He sways where he stands with a dead expression instead, and the warning sirens in your brain start up their full, deafening blare. You’ve seen sarcastic John, exhilarated John, worried John, terrified John. But you’ve never seen _despondent_ John.

“Go, you incompetent waste of space!” you shout with as much of a sting as you can muster. His eyes flutter as your volume slams him back into the present. He turns on his heel and books it.

Leaning back over to tend to Jade, the slumped corpse is positioned close enough to her that the juxtaposition sends your skin crawling. You kick it a solid distance away with as much sapped energy as you’re willing to squander. Shooting the body an accompanying glare, its presence serves as a friendly reminder that you’re both sitting ducks, stationary and occupied.

“Jade, I’m going to move one of my hands,” you warn her, letting out a warning growl when she starts to nod. “No moving, no talking, Harley. Bottle up that excess energy you always seem to have hoarded in your headspace and use it to focus on being awake.” You position your body so that she can see your face before giving the warning countdown.

“Three, two, one,” you remove your right hand and paw around in the dampened dirt until you clasp your sickle. Jade lets out a shuddery breath and your eyesight swirls as scalding blood seeps through your fingers. Ignoring the lightheadedness, you rapidly survey the surrounding area, picking through tall grass, the nearby forest line, and the water’s edge before assessing the wound further.

You can feel teeth marks beneath your palm, and that in and of itself is disturbing enough that your mentality could be described as ‘flipping out hard enough that if there were arms to spare, you’d be unintentionally doing the chicken dance.’ Screaming, slapping yourself, clinging to Jade for dear life, and tackling John to squeeze the parts you can’t fucking understand out of him-- they’re all so, _so_ tempting right now. But fate seems to have a funny way of catapulting you into the driver’s seat right when you want to screech “Jesus take the wheel” and end the entire ordeal by veering into the nearby metaphorical pond. If this is God’s half-assed attempt at stand-up comedy, you want a refund for your ticket. And a free brick to throw at him on your way out.

Jade’s eyes are flitting open and closed, and you know blood loss is finally catching up to her. You jostle her side with your knee as a desperate measure, hunching over to stare at her face-to-face. The knot in your stomach tightens when you see the corner of her mouth twitching farther and farther downwards in pain, and her glasses are filthy with blood, perspiration, and dirt. Panicking, you sweep her wild, sweaty hair to the side with the heel of your left hand.

“Jade, you’re doing great,” you choppily whisper, “if you keep this up we’re going to have to rob the other neighbors’ houses and melt all the trophies we find into one massive monstrosity that we’ll be obligated to hand to you.” She weakly smiles at that, but her body abruptly seizes and you’re still chattering, “We’ll hold a giant fucking fiesta and dress John up in a monkey suit-- Bec’ll drag the trophy out in a goddamn wagon and--” She’s not even listening to you anymore, _shit_.

“John!” you interrupt yourself to bellow towards the house. The door slams and you see him scurrying, still as blank a slate as when he ran in. He throws the kit by your side and untangles a length of bandages, automatic in his movements. He fumbles enough that you know he’s processed the urgency of this nightmare, but something about his weary, detached nature is ticking you off.

“We need to get her inside; we’re practically lounging around with our thumbs lodged up our asses,” you mutter to him and he nods.

“This isn’t very sanitary, but we’re prioritizing getting her out of here,” John says back. “Keep your hand on the wound while I try to wrap the area up in bandages-- I’ll tell you when to take your hand away.”

“Fine,” you bark. He moves Jade’s hair out of the way and starts wrapping. His mouth is a disturbingly straight line, and for a split second, you have to wonder if he’s actually human.

“Move,” he orders and you pry your palm away; the wound’s warmth still rubs against your skin because your splint is soggy with blood. His motions are rapid and soon the layer of bandages is thick. You pointedly ignore the darkening spot where the bite is. Doing another area scan, you flinch when you spot movement by the forest line.

“John, haul your ass into a faster gear,” you growl.

“I’m doing my best,” he grits back, stacking on another layer of bandages. The corpse’s snarl rings out and you can _feel_ your attention trying to alleyoop out the fucking window, you can _feel_ it trying to triple-flip and land face-down into the churning ‘pay attention ONLY to Jade’ pool, but _no, numbskull. You can’t do that right now._

“I’ll be dealing with this severe case of eye chlamydia,” you fire at John, fixing your grip on your sickle before trotting to the corpse emerging from behind the trees. He’s been stuck in the woods for a considerable amount of time, if the fungi swallowing half of his face has anything to say about it. His misted eyes are trained on your friends as he walks past you, making you feel almost like a dejected prom date. Almost.

You quickly depart his head from his shoulders and start to stagger back to John and Jade. But then another corpse is limping from the tall grass. So you pace her way and lob her head off with a little less accuracy than the last time. Your ability to concentrate is ebbing thin.

“Karkat!” John snaps and you scurry over. “We’re going to carry her horizontally to prevent further blood loss.” Unable to provide any additional worthwhile advice, you nod along and cram your sickle under your belt before placing one hand under her right shoulder, and the other under her thigh. John slings his fingers through the handle of the kit, then places his hands in the same spots on the opposite side.

“On three!” he barks like a drill sergeant. “One, two, three!” Jade is airborne, and you’re flying to the back door, John scrambling to stay marginally ahead with his shorter legs.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” you whisper in time to your footsteps as Jade twitches in accentuated pain at the jostling movements.

Reaching the door, you move your hand to support more of Jade’s weight as John uses a hand to grapple with the doorknob. His hands, like yours, are slick with blood, and the knob simply isn’t having any of your ‘twist and let us in’ bullshit. You want to shit fury all over the chief chump who decided doorknobs should be made of brass.

Suddenly a slimy hand is prodding at your back and you and John are erupting in a serious case of the ‘shit, fuck, _oh God_ ”s because John is still struggling with the doorknob, and you’re getting felt up by a pervert zombie that’s now using your shoulder as leverage to get to Jade. The door clicks open at last and you shove Jade at John, propelling them both through the doorway.

“Close the goddamn door!” you screech. John reaches out to grab the door’s edge, and yanks it closed.  

Now it’s only you between the corpse and the door.

It’s a woman twice your age and size, her bulking shoulders squared as she tries to shove you aside.

“Fuck no,” you snarl, as if she could actually process your words. Your heels splash up dirt as you dig them downwards, refusing to budge for her. You start to paw out your sickle from your belt as she stumbles closer, gore dripping from her maw like drool. A hand comes flying down at you, but you have nowhere to dodge to. Her nails graze into your cheek and leave three angry marks that bubble with blood. Your determination stutters. That was just an accident… Right? She doesn’t know you’re there? Please? Oh God, you might’ve made a breathtakingly idiotic mistake. Your heart rate is picking up, fighting its way up your throat.

She goes still.

You freeze, too.

Her head swings down and she leans forward, mouth opening and closing like she’s tasting the air. Slowly, her divoted head rotates to you.

“Don’t you dare pull this flaky, two-timing, insensitive son of a bitch act on me, karma,” you growl under your breath as she takes a step shaky forward. You take one back. She takes another step forward. You step back again.

Your back hits the door.

“God _damn_ it--” you start to spit before she slams you into said door, teeth gnashing at your throat. You writhe and try to push her away so you can have space to grab your sickle, but she’s strong enough that you only manage to sneak your forearm between your jugular and her neck before you’re being crumpled against the door again. She’s painting you with mud and grass stains and pus and overwhelming red, your least fucking favorite color, so much goddamn red that you want to stab your eyes out with your own blunt fingernails so you don’t have to see such a garish, ungodly color anymore.

This time as you hit the door, you bounce off marginally. Enough so that you can shove her back, and your sickle is clenched in your hand before you can even remember prying it out. Then you’re hunched over on your knees, hacking and pummeling and slicing every square inch of that downed woman’s body, too charged to stop, too emotionally abysmal to feel guilty. So you just keep slicing and panting and killing, feeling deader than the body beneath you.

You only stop when the birds start to sing again.

You heave yourself upright and sway on your feet, clutching your pounding head for a moment. The shock of what just happened hasn’t managed to grab you by your shirt collar and headbutt you into oblivion quite yet, so you count yourself as lucky and sprint inside before anything else can throw you for the fucking loop.  

There’s a trail of that fucking color settling into the cracks of the hardwood floor. Following them, you find John facing away from you in the living room, holding Jade’s head in his lap. The medical kit’s tools are scattered everywhere, guaze unraveled and antiseptic spilled across the floor. He soothes the lines on her forehead as she gives another pained shudder and gasp. You stop in your tracks and lurk by the doorway, worried that you may be interrupting something personal. His hand trails over her neck wound, pressing down on the guaze and applying more pressure as he moves to untangle her stringy hair with his other hand.

“It’s okay,” he softly says to her. It sounds like the emotion in the words was forcefully crammed there, way too strained. She weakly smiles at him.

“You’ve never been a good liar,” she replies with a hoarse voice. One of her hands darts to catch the hand playing with her hair. She pulls their hands so they’re resting by her chest.

“Damn it,” he shakily sighs. “It was a good run though, wasn’t it?” She slowly nods back.

“We had some _awesome_ times, John. Seriously, they were the best,” she laughs, eyes squinting in happiness.

“Glad to hear it,” he replies, his voice still faltering. He pauses. “Wherever you’re headed, can you promise to wait on me?” You catch what you _think_ is a glimpse of her winking.

“As exciting as a new adventure can be, there’s no way I wouldn’t be willing to wait for you, bro.”

Then John’s hand tightens and he’s shaking.

“God, I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I’m going to miss you too, John.” Her shoulders hunch as she fights through another wave of discomfort, before she regains her train of thought. “Hey, I want you to take my glasses, by the way.”

“What?” he quietly asks.

“Take ‘em,” she repeats. “Not like I’ll be…” she struggles to clear her throat, “Needing them. I know about all the mementos in your pocket, and well? That’s my gift.”

John stays silent.

“Be sure to clean them, though…” Her voice wavers again. “Don’t want you to remember me as a--” Cough. “A slob!” The hand she’s using to hold John’s is trembling now. He shifts her so he can cradle her head, giving up on staunching the blood flow.

“I’ll be sure to keep them crystal clean, Jade.” Her coughs are wetter, wrack her frame longer. She crumples when the fit is over.

“Good,” she reaches with her other hand to pat John’s arm, another warm smile painting her lips.

The hand stays in that spot for a very long moment.

 

Everything happens in a whirlwind after that quiet pause.

 

Her knuckles whiten as her grip on John’s arm tightens.

 

John whispers “Jade..?” in a confused, subdued tone.

 

You cling to the doorway for support as your knees buckle because you can see her eyes, you can see _her goddamn, glazed-over eyes_. 

 

"Jade?" John asks again in that hopeless, dead voice. He waits for an answer that you know he thinks will come, that has always come whenever he's asked before.

 

 

Jade’s hand slides and drops to the floor with a dull thud.

 

 

And then it’s just you and John alone, bruised and beaten in the peaceful slice of the past that you had been responsible for forcefully dragging into the fucked up future. That you had disturbed as you had flung its magazines to the floor, as you had shattered its oh-so-cautiously organized plates, as you had darkened its polished floors with dirt and blood and death.

 

 

 

This place is a graveyard, now.

 

 

  
And it’s both of your faults.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys have no idea how upsetting it was to write this. i'm pretty nervous about this chapter in general too, tbh. 
> 
> but i'm gonna keep typing so that i won't fall into the throes of despair and decide to play god and resurrect her (NOT AS A ZOMBIE) with a crappy plot twist that has no relevance to where this story supposed to be going whatsoever. 
> 
> jade's actions were decided based on the part in HS where she flings dreamer john out of the way when prospit was destroyed, btw. :'^(((((((
> 
> this was originally supposed to be a freakishly long chapter with a lot of the aftermath included, but further contemplation has helped me to decide to chop this so it's short. like one of those sandwiches that tastes better because you chopped it into triangles, rather than eating the entire, non-chopped-up version. uh... yep. 
> 
> other notes:  
> -this is fic has officially won the title of my longest fic!  
> -sorry for taking so long with this, a lot of it was done at least a week ago, but certain parts simply refused to be written, so it took longer than anticipated.  
> -sorry for errors. no beta, not looking for a beta, the usual. also i typed a lot of this rapidly, so i've probably accidentally missed a few big things. i'll try to catch them and fix them when i can.  
> -formatting probably looks weird. but heh. i did it for effect, hopefully it was actually effective. probably not. but whatevs.  
> -because i love picking songs to be associated with chapters, here's one: Kettering by the Antlers! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8We0FVflGaU )
> 
> finally, thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

 

He breaks the silence first.

“We need to make sure she won’t rise again.”

You drag a tired hand over your eyes, disregarding the mess that streaks your face as a result.

“We can afford to wait a little longer; we don’t even know if she’ll turn.” John shoots a sour look in your direction.

“People can turn within an hour of death,” he bluntly informs you. You give a half-assed squint.

“How do you even _know_ that--”

“We’re not taking any risks,” he interrupts. “It’s been almost an hour.” You drag yourself upright, limbs cracking and protesting as you stand. You’ve got to agree with your joints-- staying on the ground would be more favorable. Downright dispersing into a billion stress-free particles in the fucking wind would be ideal, though.

“Look, John, as much as the thought makes me want to disembowel myself on the nearest sharp surface for the sake of doing something more pleasurable, I’ll… Uh…” John waits impatiently as you taper off for a second, too stunned to even _indirectly_ admit what had happened. “I’ll deal with Jade. I know it’d probably be a lot to handle, for you.” He’s already shaking his head.

“No, I’ll do it.”

You study John’s features, the knot in your stomach tightening as you see how dry his eyes are, how stoic his features are. ‘ _What in the name of tap-dancing Christ is going on in this fucker’s head?_ ’ you ask yourself. Wearily, you nod, unsure as to what else you can do.

“Fine. We should carry her to a more respectful resting spot,” you respond. Wordlessly, John gathers her in his arms. He hefts her up, bridal style, and brushes past you to the nearest bedroom. You watch his retreating figure for a moment. Then you head to the kitchen.

You shuffle through the drawers for knives, finding a majority of them have been plucked from their places. Moving to hold up two larger ones that you dug up from a drawer of assorted junk, your wrist smacks against a ceramic bowl on the counter. It’s been hastily placed, likely due to your scramble to check the upstairs faucets after Bec wanted water… Speaking of the goddamn devil beast, where is he?

You pivot on your heel, waiting for the clicking of nails on the floor to sound out from somewhere in the building. But there’s nothing. Shaking your head, you stride out of the kitchen. Bec’s the least of your extensive list of woes and worries. You’ll burn that bridge when you get to it.

Knives firmly in hand, you trace John’s steps and find him perched on the bed beside Jade’s motionless form. His shoulders are hunched, the grazed skin on his cheek still hanging loosely and unpicked. He says nothing as you nudge the door fully aside.

“Hey,” you murmur, padding your way over to him. You opt to place the knives at the foot of the bed behind him. Seating yourself, you carefully wrap an arm over his shoulders. When he doesn’t respond, you offer a nervous squeeze.

“I can still do it, y’know. I’m not going to kick you in the shins and call you pansy-assed coward if you can’t do it,” you quietly offer. Not that you want to. But you’d drive a kitchen knife through your _own_ goddamn cranium, if it meant he’d suffer a little less.

...Huh.

That was a surprising thought.

“I said I’d do it, didn’t I?” John finally responds to your offer. The sunset’s orange light filters through the shutters in stripes, making his glasses gleam. “It needs to be me.” Slowly, you loosen your grip to twist and grab the knives.

“I found two knives in the kitchen for you to use then,” you start as you shift back to face him. His breathing spikes with no warning, and the knives are abruptly batted from your hands and to the floor. You yelp and yank your feet out of the knives’ path as they clatter downwards. Silently, you hold your hands up in the universal gesture of ‘ _what the shit, man_?’ His teeth are gritted.

“Not those,” he grunts. He clambers off the bed and strides from the room. Breathlessly, you settle back onto the bed, too defeated to reach down and pick up the aftermath. In lieu of counting everything you could have possibly done wrong in the past hour to make John act so cold, you study the other occupant of the bed.

Her black hair haloes her smoothed face-- John must have already closed her eyes and wiped the tension from her features. The bandages around her throat are thoroughly dyed, drying red-brown at the edges. Her hands have been carefully clasped together over her stomach, legs stretched out so her toes are pointed. Despite her battered figure, she looks surprisingly peaceful. Like she’d settled onto this very bed with the intentions to take a quick nap. Tilting your head in confusion, you realize something’s missing.

Her glasses.

“Found something,” John announces as he reenters. Your head shoots to trace his path, finding him brandishing a screwdriver.

“You’re… You’re joking, right?” you stutter. He positions himself in his previous spot on the bed.

“No, I’m not,” he firmly answers, giving you a meaningful stare. You can’t muster up the energy to return it. You slip off the bed, scurrying to the doorway.

“I’ll be right outside,” you curtly explain. Then you turn and hustle back to the kitchen before he can ask you anything else. You prop yourself against the nearest counter and relish the quiet, ignoring the blotches of black now swimming in your vision. Whether it’s exhaustion or illness, it’s inconvenient and a liability. So you give it the silent treatment. To hell with it, you’ll give the entire misfortune-shitting world the silent treatment if it means you can stop feeling so empty.

You still can’t swallow what’s happened. You still can’t sit down, stare today’s reality in the face, and nod along.

‘ _Nothing has changed_ ,’ your head’s assuredly whispering, shoving your blood-splattered past hour into some deep, dark closet in your brain. Your emotions are buying it. Your memories aren’t.

Your cheek stings, a grounding reminder that this isn’t a dream. This isn’t a tragedy. This is your shitastic, godforsaken abomination of a life. And you just lost a friend. But no one ever warned you that loss wasn’t simple, pure sadness-- it’s more like being whittled hollow. If someone poked a line of holes somewhere in your body and the wind started to blow, you’d probably sound exactly like a fucking flute.

Something hairy brushes against your leg, causing you to glance downwards.

Bec is skimming his nose up and down, circling around your splinted hand as he finds Jade’s blood soaked in the gauze. Spreading your fingers, you rake them through his white fur, cringing as portions of his head are painted pale red.

“‘M sorry,” you mutter in apology. You can’t even send him to drycleaning for that stain, damnit. He perks his head upwards, looking back at you with wide, amber eyes. He rubs his scalp back against your palm, leaving another brilliant streak behind. You yank your hand back like any more contact will sear your hand off clean.

Bec curiously watches as you take a few teetering steps away. He starts towards you, stopping when he watches you flinch.

“Not now,” you growl, your voice annoyingly shaky. Your sight keeps darting back to the blood saturating your pores, not dripping, but just noticeable enough that you’re dying to scratch all your skin off like a rabid coyote afflicted with a freakishly serious case of eczema. Bec stares at you for a moment longer. Then he’s turning around in a flurry of white, padding to another room. You let out a tired exhale.

You lean back against the counter and decide to try to bullshit your way into that stressed-but-calm state you always managed to summon before finals week-- back when school was a legitimate devourer of your life. You had it going for you less than ten minutes ago, where did it fuck off to? Air whistles down your windpipe. Carbon dioxide surges back out. You repeat the process with a blanker mind. Then again. Again. Again--

Something loudly clatters a few rooms away and you reflexively jolt, losing your footing and squeezing all the air from your lungs as your tailbone receives a hearty ‘fuck you’ upon landing. The loud sound continues, wood dragging on wood as something is dragged closer; _way too fucking close_ . You grab onto the ledge and start heaving yourself up. Your arms and legs feel like they’ve received a six-way pounding _and not in the sexy way God_ damn _your dysfunctional brain sometimes_. But the noise is right around the corner, already weaving through, _it’s already here_ \--

“Bec?” you wheeze. You’re still stuck in a pose that’d automatically win you supreme reignship over any and every Twister competition in the history of ever. You sag back downwards. Bec stands at the mouth of the doorway, holding the end of a particularly long stick in his mouth. But it’s not just any stick.

It’s the stick Jade used somewhat religiously to pump corpses full of lead.

“And here I thought thumbs were necessary for being able to pop a cap up someone’s ass,” you grunt. Bec does the canine equivalent of a disappointed sigh in response. The butt of the rifle scrapes the floor as he approaches, stopping to stand where you’ve sprawled. Without further ado, he spits the muzzle into your lap, and you hold your hands back like he’d spat wasps out instead.

“I-I don’t want this!” You splutter, accidentally smacking your hands on the cabinet behind you. You finally muster it in yourself to place your hands on the rifle, if only to shove it back in the damn mutt’s direction.

Bec doesn’t bother spending time on a good-old-fashioned game of ‘no takesies backsies’, he simply continues to hammer you with a flat, dead serious stare.

“Put it back!” you snap. He doesn’t.

You mimic throwing it. He refuses to budge.

You point it at yourself. He stays still.

“Fuck you and your mangy, flea-bitten asshole,” you spit, shoving the rifle back into your lap. Bec finally tilts his head, watching you shift so your chin can rest on your knees; the rifle is flush against your chest thanks to your new position.

He clicks his way closer to settle by your left side, the top of his head propped against the side of your thigh. Your gaze trails to his face as you rigidly make an effort to keep your hands firmly in your personal bubble. Bec’s pointy ears are flattened against his skull, the blood flecking his muzzle and fur making his face look more gaunt and starved. His eyes are tired. Probably as tired as yours. You sit still for a moment.

“You already know, don’t you.” you ask. Bec takes an impossibly deep breath, waiting a beat before releasing it. You burrow your face into your knees. Then you follow Bec’s lead and take your own shuddery breath.

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” you murmur.

As expected, no one gives you an answer.

You hate it when you’re right.

Something growls from the bedroom. You’re already moving to stand again, placing the rifle against the cabinet to your left and watching Bec’s fur ripple in apprehension.

“John?” you call worriedly. Silence.

“John?” you repeat. Something slams into a wall. You flinch.

“John!” you shout again, frantic. A high shriek-- too high to be John’s-- assaults your ears before tapering off. You freeze. The door clicks open.

“I’m okay,” John’s voice floats down the hallway. “One hour and sixteen minutes. That’s how long it took,” he vacantly calls. The door clicks shut.

You crawl back to your spot, not even objecting as Bec nudges into your right side, coating you with white fur. It tickles your nose as you pick up the rifle, propping it against your left shoulder and trailing your fingers over the trigger, over the underside of the barrel. The places where her hands sat so comfortably less than half a day ago. Now it’s your grimy hands smearing over her fingerprints, smudging up her polished scope. You let your hands drop. It’s not like she’ll ever be around to replace any fingerprints you brush over.

It finally hits you.

“She’s gone,” you breathe. You slide your hand to your side, onto Bec’s head. Threading your fingers through his fur, neither you nor him seem to care that Jade’s blood is getting stuck all across his scalp. His nostrils flare as he takes in her scent from the gauze.

“She’s really gone,” you say again. Numbly, you pull the rifle closer to you with your free hand, fingerprints be damned.

And then you’re crying.

Itchy, runny tears that you can’t even pretend are the result of getting dust-- or even a goddamn hatchet-- stuck in your eye. Your shoulders are shaking and your nose is running and you must look fucking pathetic, the equivalent of a splattered insect twitching against the almighty windshield of life.

You choke out a laugh. What a stupid fucking metaphor.

The sound echoes in the kitchen, reminding you how empty this room is; how ass-backwards this situation is. You should be brandishing a knife in the bedroom while someone else sits here having an emotional breakdown. Or better yet, both of you could be sitting here together, huddled and doing nothing more extensive than _existing_. But you can’t even have something _that_ simple, can you? You and your greedy ass have done enough wanting, needing, and demanding, eh, Karkat?

The door down the hallway stays shut.

So does your mouth, no matter how easy it’d be to call him over. You’re not even sure he’d want to talk.

 

  
  
You’re not even sure he’d leave the room in the first place.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well again this was going to be a megachapter, but i think it was better to keep this short and sweet so that i can cram more content into the next chapter that's more cohesive! this one isn't exactly sitting with me well, but eh, it works well enough that i won't keep prodding at it.
> 
> anyways yeah, this is definitely a bridge chapter, but a lot of stuff is going down now, even if it's not necessarily action-packed! we'll find out a lot more about john soon, at least! :O
> 
> i know my updates are getting more erratic, but it's been getting tough to muster up the energy to write, despite this story being the furthest i've progressed on any of my planned plots... ever. i'm still fighting the writing lulls, so hopefully we'll push through! i think it's just a matter of me being really iffy confidence-wise with my writing style, but that's probably me being overly-critical of myself, ahah. there's also school but senioritis means i have time to write when i'm procrastinating on assignments, so that's okay i guess lmao. 
> 
> now for the usual song thing-y i do... not SUPER relevant, but i thought a lot of 'laughing with' by regina spektor while writing this! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqG1Dh36-6s)
> 
> final notes:
> 
> sorry for such an anti-climatic chapter... 
> 
> but thank you for reading! :^D


	6. Chapter 6

 

The damn dog coaxes him out before you do.

Bec’s claws grate the bedroom’s door like nails on a chalkboard-- Scritch. You grind your teeth, sacrificing your dental health for the sake of your sanity. Scritch. You point the rifle at the hairy waste of space… The safety’s on, but he doesn’t know that. Scritch. For the love of all that is holy, unholy, hell-dwelling, or none of the above,  _when will he stop_? Scritch--

The door groans open, and John stumbles out, looking like he’d fall squarely in that aforementioned ‘hell-dwelling’ category-- at least in presentation. Apparently his patience ran thinner than yours. That says a lot about his current state of mind.

You say nothing as you put down the rifle and catch his surprisingly bright stare, your sights slowly following his path as he ignores Bec entirely and staggers into the kitchen. Still abiding that ‘keep your mouth shut and mope’ mentality, huh, Vantas? You want to rip off your own legs and beat yourself to death with them, all the while spitting, ‘Where’s that bravado from earlier, you quivering, inept sack of half-dried human feces? All this verbal discharge over putting on a brave face and now you can’t even pry open those blubbering pieces of trash sealing your mouth shut?’

You disgust yourself.

John slides one of the kitchen table’s chairs out, lightly lowering himself down before sparing another look your way. Bec, giving up on offering or receiving any comfort from John, skirts around him, plopping his obscenely furry ass back by your side, which is still camped on the floor.

“We’ll cremate and bury her remains tomorrow morning,” he breaks the silence. It sounds like a passing comment, the kind of tone you’d use when talking about the weather, not someone’s fucking funeral. The cherry blood caking his hands glints and glimmers. Yours, rust and russet, flakes. You know whose hands the screwdriver from earlier’s metal will match. John takes a moment to contemplate the nighttime glow outside the nearby window. He looks almost at peace when he sees it’s a waning crescent.

He disgusts you.

That poisonous feeling, so abrupt and uninvited, shocks you into action. It throws off your self-presented character, chucking you into the ballpark of people willing to actually talk about their _feelings_ , God forbid.

“Are you…” John seems to finally register that you’re alive as you plow your way through such revoltingly saccharine words, “Are you okay?” He taps out a rhythm with his fingertips as he thinks for a moment. It’s light and carefree, the type of tune you’d hear on the radio on a summer afternoon.

“I think so?” he answers. You wrap yourself around that rising note of confusion at the end of the sentence. If there’s uncertainty, it means there’s a fraction of him that you can possibly understand, a fraction of hope that he’s actually sad and confused and scared. Like you are.

“Did she go out, uh, peacefully?” you ask, unsure what else to say. The bedroom wall still seems to echo, you can still hear the _thump_ and those growls. You’re a dumbass for asking, because you obviously know. But you’d be the _ultimate_ fuck-dusted chickenshit if you ended your conversation right then and there.

“No,” John sighs, right on cue. He still doesn’t look the way you’d expect him to. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy that’d just crammed a screwdriver into his cousin’s skull after watching her die in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” you gruffly reply, offbeat and throwing off whatever semblance of a conversational flow you were trying to maintain. John shrugs. _He shrugs_.

You try tapping out your own rhythm on the tiling, but the beat is marred and ugly; it’s practically a funeral march.

He tires of tapping out his tune right when you give up, and you both stop in unison. You glance at him. He looks at his hands.

That’s the last straw.

You gently push Bec’s head from your lap, hauling yourself up in a much less careful manner.

“Okay,” you grit, “there is obviously something wrong here.” John nods.

“Jade’s de--” he starts.

“--Between _us_ ,” you interrupt, seething. “Jade being--” you deeply inhale instead of saying that word… the ‘d’ word, “is about as glaringly obvious as describing being on fire as ‘hot.’ But _this_?” you wave your splinted hand between you and him, “this is stupidly convoluted, this is a matryoshka doll of emotional bullfuckery that I am _not_ in the mood to tear through.” He squints, his confused left eye splintered behind the broken lense of his glasses.

“What are you talking about?” You watch the way he leans mildly forward in his chair, like you’re the afternoon news and you started presenting the details on an ongoing murder case that just so happened to catch half of his attention. You nearly morph into a fury-fueled shit rocket right then and there.

“I don’t understand you! Since the moment Jade shoved you and you smacked into that gravel, you’ve been different. Did you get a concussion? Are you _concussed_? Because if so we’re beyond screwed; I mean, _you’re_ the pseudo-doctor here--”

“I’m fine,” he leans further forward, chest propped against the edge of the table. Like the murder case you’re describing just went from a single instance of homicide to serial killings. Interested, but not invested.

You kick a nearby cabinet tucked under a counter and roar, “The old John would actually be listening to what I’m saying! He wouldn’t try to get me to sit down and shut up!” John slams back into his chair, spine stiff against its back. His eyes are wide.

“I’m listening now,” he quietly offers. Like he’s the reasonable one, like he’s the one whose brain hasn’t been scooped out and replaced with a fucking computer. You storm your way to his spot and yank his chin up, making his eyes firmly meet yours. Showing him who’s in charge at the moment.

“ _Good_ ,” you growl, limbs twitching as you realize you can feel his warm breath hitting your face, that you can practically taste the smell of sweat and copper and fresh bread that sticks to him like a second skin. A small part of you cries when you pull your face away from his, feeling the cold exhaustion that always seems to fade in his close proximity. You squash it like a bug under your thumb.

“Now explain,” you prompt him, crossing your arms. He reels back further in his chair, bewildered.

“Explain _what_?”

“Explain whatever the hell you’re trying to accomplish! Nothing you’ve done has made sense; none of your behavior is making an iota of fucking sense!” He gapes at your demand, looking side to side before deciding to glare at you.

“I’m not trying to accomplish anything,” he calmly explains. But there’s ice behind the statement, the kind of implication that whispers, ‘ _Push me further, and I’ll pummel you within half an inch of your pathetic, unsubstantial life.’_ Like the genius you are, you ignore it.

“‘Not trying to accomplish anything’ my dirt-encrusted _ass_ ,” you snarl. He says nothing, and you take it as a ‘go’ signal, rather than the underhanded warning it truly is.  

“Can you stop and look at yourself for a second, John!? You haven’t bawled your eyes out once, or acted even remotely like you just watched your cousin die in your place!”

His stare is burning holes into the table now, the knuckles on his clenched hands going white. You know he’s furious, but the drowning sense of wrongness won’t let you drop this matter until one of you cracks-- and frankly, it can’t be you. You’ve already been shattered and rearranged into a new picture from a thousand tiny pieces. It’s his damn turn.

“Have you ever cared about anyone for a single day in your life!?” you fire at him, “Or are people like those little free sample carts where you pick and choose anything and everything at your own leisure, and when they disappear, you just sigh and move on to the next aisle? Is everyone in your life replaceable? Do you just not fucking care? Are you _human_ \--”

“--You don’t get to decide whether or not I care!” he shouts as he shoves himself upright. His chair clatters to the ground and you wince, taken aback. “I don’t care if you think I’m horrible for not crying, but emotions aren’t some uniform thing that people have one fucking way of showing!” His chest heaves as he gives you the kind of glare that could roast a person from the inside out. Your kidneys are already turning golden brown. You take a step back.

At long last, you get it. Your ridiculous moment of ‘eureka!’, the clearing of clouds to reveal the shitty, right-under-your-damn-nose answer. He’s been a molotov cocktail since Jade passed; a slimy concoction of bottled up guilt and weak stoicism waiting for a spark at the just-right temperature. And apparently you finally singed the ratty cloth, the substitute for a wick. The only flaw with your comparison is that John doesn’t try to set everything aflame when he’s ignited. He fucking explodes.

“I’m sorry--” you start.

“No, you asked for an explanation, and you’re getting one!” he snaps and you shut up. “I’m not crying because I don’t think I fucking can, anymore! I cared about Jade the most between you and me, she was _family_ , why the hell would I not be upset? But, but, _but--_ ” he stutters, “you weren’t there. You weren’t there that first day, we lost everything , we lost almost  everyone, I can’t be _your_ kind of upset when this is the same kind of low and I already learned how to accept it…”

“What?” you splutter, lost in his rambling.

He doesn’t answer, opting to heavily lower himself onto the floor with the back of his head braced against the table’s edge. The room gets coated thickly with silence, just your heavy breathing and the ticking of the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. Tick. Tick. Tick.

“I want to know what I did to get such bad karma,” he finally murmurs to himself. He shakily pulls his glasses off from his face, running a finger over the ridges of the cracked lense as he thinks. You slink over to settle by his side with a quiet sigh.

“If the universe were running on karma points, I’d be trapped outside while bleeding profusely from my dick, and you’d be the king of some random, foreign country with enough gold and power that this whole situation would be a far-off nightmare,” you say, watching his nose scrunch at your comment. He side-eyes you, still angry.

“John.”

He stays silent.

“You need to talk to someone. Whatever’s weighing you down besides the glaringly obvious looks like it’s already fucked your emotions sideways without any lube.”

Not even your revolting language is cracking his resolve, like it usually does.

“A lack of communication is going to get you crammed six feet under in a ugly coffin held together by cheap glitter and craft glue,” you try to reason. He lets out a humorless snort.

“Communication sure hasn’t ever helped me before, Karkat. It didn’t help Jade, it _definitely_ didn’t help my dad--”

“--Woah, woah, woah, if you’re going to whip out your debate skills for an anti-communication discourse right here and right now, how about providing some goddamn context?” you bark at him. “News flash, I was late to the party. Two days late, with 192 cups of sugary bullshit Starbucks coffee! I gave you space in regard to some glaringly obvious questions, but I’m starting to think that leaving you to your own devices was about as beneficial as a fucking wheelchair with pedals!” He watches you slap your hand against the floor in frustration, his features trained into a detached expression.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay, _what_?” you growl. His vague answers make you want to climb on the table and leap off to body slam him, but you’re doing your absolute best in working to not. Lose. Your. Shit. You’re the patience master, holding your foaming-at-the-mouth aggressive tendencies on a child leash.

“I’ll tell you what happened.”

“Fantastic,” you rasp in approval, sarcasm still seeping from the word. “Now how is this story going to start?” John bites the corner of his lip, thinking.

“With my house.”

“What about it?” you ask, kicking the dialogue along.

“I lived in a pretty big neighborhood; you saw how many houses there were.”

“Sure.”

“I lived there my whole life with my Dad and sister, Jane.” Your thoughts crackle for a moment at that. It was easy to guess he had a guardian, but a _sister_? You stay silent.

“We were on pretty good terms with all the neighbors. My Dad was the kind of guy who liked to get to know everyone, so the house always smelled like some sort of baked good, ‘cause someone was always moving in and he needed to give them a welcoming gift.” He weakly laughs. “I think I might actually like cake, but he made it so often that I was sick of it for at least half of my life.”

“He sounds like a freakishly nice guy,” you offer. John nods.

“Yeah, I can only really think of a few times in my life where he snapped at others, and usually it was with pretty valid reasons. He had his quirks, though. I can think of at least a hundred different pranks he pulled on me and Jane.” A pause. “Also, he got a restraining order from Cirque du Soleil after trying to shave a performer’s back.”

“Holy shit,” you wheeze in disbelief.

“Anyways,” John sighs, “my sister was right up the same alley. Jane liked baking and pranks, but she had her own things that singled her out. She was the detective of the family, with like, three shelves of mystery books. She was pretty skeptical as a person because those books taught her to question _everything_ , but we all learned to work with it, y’know? She was family. Family that really, really liked Ron Swanson and facial hair. I mean, wow,” he snorts. You weakly smile in encouragement, knowing that recapping everything probably feels like scraping the inside of his ribs clean with a butter knife.

“So, I’m sixteen, Jane’s nineteen, Dad’s, uh,” he tries to do the math in his head and rolls his shoulders when he fails, “Dad-aged. Then Jade comes into the mix. She’s a few months older than me, but not quite old enough to live alone on an island in the middle of who-knows-where. Our Grandpa-- who she lived with-- had just died, and Dad told her to come stay with us until she wanted to leave. She agrees, and we all have time to get used to each other. I turn seventeen, finally. She’s still finding it hard to accept that Grandpa is dead. I tell her I’ll be like a brother to her, if she wants. She accepts.” John swallows a lump in his throat. “Things are going pretty well. We both start looking into college; Jane’s already at the place we plan to go to. Dad had just gotten a promotion as a businessman, but the work hours are good enough that we all still get to see a lot of each other.” He pointedly refuses to look at you as he stops for a moment.

“The outbreak happens.” The way his voice softens feels like something’s curled up and died in your stomach.

“The local cemetery has a lot of graves, so there are a lot of zombies outside. Dad tells us to stay inside, and he locks all of the doors and finds a baseball bat from the garage. But he spots the neighbor from across the street trying to get back into his house after coming back from some chores-- he had like, three younger kids and a sick wife, so he was pretty desperate.” His knuckles are turning white again as he clenches the corner of his flannel shirt. Your heart is pounding. “Dad tells us to lock the door behind him. He runs outside where the neighbor is trying to open the car door, smacks a few zombies out of the way, and starts to _escort_ the other guy.”

You gape at John. His mouth is a firm line before he opens it again.

“Dad’s pretty strong; he aims well enough that he knocks a few corpses down, and they _stay_ down. He runs the neighbor to his front door and waits until he’s inside and safe. Then he starts sprinting to our house, where Jane, Jade, and I are losing our shit, banging on the windows by the front door. But…” he trails off with a pained look. “But apparently he hadn’t hit one of those zombies hard enough.”

“Oh fuck,” you whisper. He finally glances at you for a moment with tired eyes.

“It gets onto its feet and takes a chunk out of his hip before he can hit it again.” He takes a deep breath, but it’s watery. “He keeps running though, and we let him inside. His first words to us? ‘What a shame, this was my favorite dress shirt.’” John shakes his head with a wavering smile. “It was so ridiculous, we all burst out laughing. But I think we kind of broke down in the middle of it, ‘cause next thing you know, we’re all hugging and crying and jeez, everything was a mess. Blood and snot got everywhere.” He keeps shaking his head in disbelief. The motion fades, and you stare as his eyes get unfocused, pointed towards the floor.

“So, what happened?” you ask after giving him a minute. He jolts like he’s been bumped out of a trance.

“He decided to send a warning email to the neighbors about our little problem,” John answers. Flatly. His voice drops a few octaves as he gives an impression of his dad, “‘Hey, neighbors! Just giving a heads up that there was an incident, and I got bitten. I feel pretty damn fine, but it’s probably wisest to leave my house alone while my family and I decide what the hell we’re going to do! I know that you’re all perfectly rational, totally compassionate human beings that understand exactly where I’m coming from, so don’t send an angry mob after us! Lots of love, Mr. Egbert!’” John’s lip starts to twist downwards. “He was a smart man, but he had way too much faith in people.”

“The neighbors…” you start.

“They sent an angry mob after us,” John finishes. You take a moment to contemplate whether Mr. Egbert knew he was living in a neighborhood of savage animals, if he would have treated them the same if he had known, but you quickly shake the thought from your head. In ugly times, people are still people. And people are always assholes, whether it’s hidden under fifty layers of goodwill, or displayed outright.

“What happened?” you mutter. John hugs his legs to his chest, struggling through what to say.

“They knocked.” You raise a brow. John shrugs. “He answered.”

Silence. You both know what comes next.

“The wound was just so fresh. Like, still-gushing and just-started-to-seep-through-the-first-set-of-bandages fresh. And that freaked them out a little more than it freaked us out.”

“God…”

“They dragged him outside into our front yard and barely even _looked at the wound_ , they didn’t even consider waiting to see what would happen,” he lets out an incredulous laugh, more of a whine, if anything. “They were all repeating the same thing, ‘put him out of his misery! Don’t let him turn!’ And we couldn’t do a thing! The crowd was so thick, you’d have thought we were having a bake sale, not an execution!” And here it comes. The shoe’s about to drop...

“There was so much gunfire from people warding off zombies around us that I didn’t even hear when they shot him.” Thunk. “But Jade and Jane were suddenly shoving and screaming-- All I knew was that I had to hold them back.” He squeezes his arms, like he’s trying to shake off goosebumps he doesn’t have. You know he doesn’t have any because you’ve been staring at those battered arms, trying to figure out which scars are the freshest, which were sliced into existence mere days before you met him.

“I managed to get Jade in a solid hold, in a position that even _her_ weasel-y arms couldn't escape. Jane though…” John clears his throat. “Jane’s always been bigger. And stronger. She could really pack a punch if she needed to,” he taps his cracked lense. Winces. Runs a hand through his charcoal hair. “I don’t know where she got a fork, but she was whipping one out and pushing into the ring before I could recover.”

That doesn’t sound like it ended well.

“Apparently no amount of friendly cakes from before the apocalypse can get you out of trouble for jamming a fork into several people’s thighs.”

“Jesus _Christ_ , your sister was hardcore as hell,” you gasp. John weakly smiles.

“Hardcore can only get you so far, though.” You both take a break to stare at a crack in the tiles, only for a second.

“She didn’t even bother with screaming-- she was too stubborn. She just kept fighting, and Jade and I only managed to spot her once the neighbors cleared. I mean, they had their own families to protect.” He side-eyes you again, waiting for you to say something. He’s obviously tired of all the damn monologuing. So you say the first thing that comes to mind.

“I could have only two brain cells and still come to the groundbreaking conclusion that the results were ugly,” you offer.

“Yeah,” John confirms, “the results were ugly. She was laying in the dirt next to Dad. Bruises and cuts everywhere; I think whoever had the guns was afraid to fire while she ran around… They didn’t want to hit the crowd, or anything.” You hum in reluctant agreement. “But it was obvious she was not, uh, going to make it. She had a big, nasty head wound. The kind of thing you’d get from a car crash.”

“How the shitting hell--”

“--Our baseball bat was missing from its perch right by the doorway when we went back inside later,” John sighs. You want to puke. He looks like he wants to break something.

“Jade and I were lucky in how we got a chance to say goodbye to her, though. Dad was a lost cause and so was Jane, but she could still talk. So we let her.” This sounds like something out of a movie, the kind of tragedy flick you’d watch when everything in the house was dark and all you needed in life was a solid cry. Frankly, it’s fucking working. You’re aching for John, aching for all the bullshit that’s steamrolled him over.

“What’d she say?” you murmur instead. He pinches his lip.

“She didn’t say much. Just, ‘I’m okay, I’m okay.’ Kind of like a broken record.” He glances thoughtfully out the window again, the light rippling across his features as a wispy cloud ghosts over the moon. You can’t help the fleeting thought as you watch him watch the sky: he’s frustratingly pretty. You don’t even bother to pretend like you were doing something less creepy as he looks back at you to finish his thought. “I think she meant it, though.”

“Good,” you say. You mean it. He tightly nods.

“The rest is what you’d expect. We dealt with them when they turned. Jade kept watch while I buried them in the backyard; right under that one big tree, y’know?” You know. You don’t know whether or not you remember seeing any grave markers. “We finished by sunset. We locked the doors behind us. We went to bed.” He says nothing about an emotional meltdown, no grand moments where he threw his head back and screamed his feelings out at a volume that’d put your voicebox to shame. Something tells you that it never happened. That he’s never been a chronic burner with his grief; he’s always been a grenade.

“The next morning, the majority of the neighborhood had left. I guess they decided it was too dangerous to stay,” he continues.

“Or they realized they were the equivalent of sentient pond scum and backwash, then left before the guilt ate them alive,” you reason. Another shaky smile.

“That too.” Bec lets out a light growl in the other room, probably sniffing through a few pairs of shoes scattered by the doorway. You both ignore him.

“Jade and I kind of just stopped thinking. We were Team John and Jade! Neither of us felt like talking about what had happened the day before. If we talked about it, we might go crazy, and crazy isn’t good when you’ve got people outside trying to eat you.” You slump back a bit, let out a dissatisfied sigh.

“For some of the smartest people I know, you and Harley made some astoundingly stupid decisions. Like, I would stand up and applaud you both for being so hopeless if I somehow managed to manipulate time and space so I could experience that dumbass decision the moment it happened.”

“Talk about a backhanded compliment, Karkat,” John rubs the back of his neck, half-amused, half-solemn. You scoff.

“Your logic only works in the short-term; did you think stuffing all that grief down your traps like an all-you-could-eat buffet and keeping your wordholes shut _wouldn’t_ result in torrents of emotional leakage from your mouth or ass eventually?” He’s silent as you ramble, “It’s not healthy! I’d understand if this whole dilemma was something simple like being trapped in the house for three days because a rabid raccoon was on the prowl, but in the _zombie apocalypse_? Nothing ever gets solved, dickprince. You’re in it for the long haul. ‘Til death do you and your head part.” John rolls his eyes.

“Jerk.”

“Dunderfuck,” you fire back. He waves you off, sobering up again.

“But back to Team John and Jade-- we decided to go stock up some supplies while we could. We agreed to run on fake names while we were outside, just in case. I grabbed a hammer from the garage, Jade pulled out her old rifle. We headed out to the nearest store. He leans towards you, almost conversationally. “It was kind of like everyday grocery shopping, to be honest,” he says.

“Really?” you ask, already strongly doubting it.

“Apart from the fact that you don’t pay, you don’t have anyone to restrict what you get, and everyone in the building wants to fight you for whatever you pick up, yeah,” he replies. “People are worse than corpses because they can actually use their brains,” he adds offhandedly. You nod along, even though there’s no reason for you to. “We used up half our gauze after that first trip,” he snorts, and you think back to the first time you saw him, all the bandages and bandaids he was sporting.

“Hm,” you grunt in satisfaction, another mystery solved. Someone ought to slap a deerstalker on you and call you a supersleuth.

“The next day was supposed to be the same-- just raiding stores for more supplies. Jade kept saying ‘we can’t live on Fruit Gushers forever, you know!’ because that was like, the only thing I could grab en masse the day before. I didn’t really get her logic; I mean, Fruit Gushers are pretty fucking great and _I_ could definitely live on them forever.” You cover your mouth to keep an ugly laugh from jumping out.

“So we were walking to the city and, uh…”

“You found me,” you finish. He lightly punches your shoulder.

“We weren’t really used to finding anyone dead lying down… If someone was dead, they’d find a way to get themselves upright. And you weren’t really moving. So we put two-and-two together, realized you were probably still alive, and decided to lend a hand, I guess!” You slowly blink.

“You nearly drowned me.” He waves you off.

“Sorry, we were fresh out of smelling salts, fucknuts!” You groan at the weak insult. But something is confusing you-- well, more so than usual.  

“Why’d you even bother, though? If people you’d known for your whole life could turn on you guys so easily, who’s to say I wasn’t going to find a chance to knock you unconscious and nab a kidney, or something?” He tilts his head, face scrunched in contemplation.

“I don’t really know. Maybe ignoring the fact that Jane and Dad were gone helped me keep being so trustful? My friends always used to say I had a good people sense, like, a radar to tell whether or not it was worth keeping someone around. Nothing was screaming at me to run for the hills, or to hit you with my hammer until you died.”

“Sounds kind of like a steaming puddle of superstitious piss,” you provide ever-so-helpfully. He doesn’t take it the wrong way-- he rarely does.

“Mumbo jumbo or not, it’d suck if we had to run around in the stupid apocalypse without being able to trust anyone besides each other. We’d both probably end up being pretty lonely.” He’s getting sappy now, goddamnit. If you poked him, your hand would probably come away sticky.

“Mumbo jumbo or not, I’m glad you guys didn’t leave me behind.” He flashes a crooked grin at your response.

“We needed an asshole in our dynamic, and you were _perfect_ for the job!”

“Okay, scratch my former statement, I’m going to go find that car I was pinned under and trap myself again.” You move to get up and he tugs you back down, chuckling like a dopey manchild that’s high after downing twelve packets of Fun Dip in one go. Something glints from the opening of his pocket as you fall back onto your ass, marginally closer than before. You reach and snag it from his pocket; he doesn’t move to stop you.

“So you took her glasses, huh,” you twist the spectacles around in your hands, being careful not to further smudge the lenses.

“She told me to.”

You glance at his pocket again. The fabric is lumpy.

“Are you ever going to tell me about those mementos she mentioned?”

“Some day. Not today, though.”

“Fair enough.” You’ll let him have his secrets. Things have been dragged out of the emergency zone in terms of whatever emotional fuckery has transpired, but it’s not like this is spring cleaning. You can’t wash everything out by throwing in more elbow grease right then and there.

“What are you going to do with these, though?” You hold the glasses out to John, who carefully pries them from your palms like he’s performing open heart surgery.

“I dunno. Leaving them in my pocket makes me worried that I’ll break them. She had the same prescription as me, so I _could_ wear them, but something about that feels wrong. I mean, these are hers, not mine.” You shoulder him hard with an offended frown.

“John, you idiot! I barely got a chance to understand her, but I _know_ she’d be screaming about how hard she’d haunt your dumb ass if you didn’t use them, considering your own pair is broken. Everything she owned had to be used, right? She was all about making the best use of everything, am I wrong?” He holds his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, okay! You’re right!” He quickly plucks his glasses off his nose and puts her grimy ones on, clearly unable to see.

“Better?” he asks.

“Better,” you agree.

And that’s that.

You lock up the house.

“Do me-- wait, no, do _yourself_ a favor, John,” you say through a mouthful toothpaste, both of you scrubbing your teeth with dry bristles. He gives you a curious look.

“Do what, Karkat?”

“Speak up when you feel like shit.” And you can finally see that he _has_ been feeling like shit; you’ve just been looking in the wrong places. His kind of hurt manifests in the way he stands and how he reacts, not in his eyes or voice, like you’d been expecting. He gives a gentle nod.

“Okay.”

And that’s that.

You both go to bed on the kitchen floor.

 

  
_________________________

 

It’s a crisp Wednesday morning when you stack a pyre together and burn Jade’s body.

A gray column of smoke trickles above the treeline and reflects off the lake’s water, but you can’t be assed to be subtle about this. You want all the world to know that it’s being held responsible for Jade’s death. There’s no solidified force to point fingers at, so everyone gets the blame. Even you.

John’s sitting as close to the pyre as he can without risking a seared-off eyebrow; you’re occasionally shifting spots, sickle in hand. The burning wood pops. A bird chirps. The smell of burnt flesh is sickeningly familiar. But you can’t see her burning skin or bubbling sockets, because the white sheets-- the sheets of the king-sized bed from upstairs-- drape over her features. You wonder if John can see what you’re grateful you can’t, considering he’s donning her glasses, speckless and polished.

It takes five hours for the Jade to crumble into ashes. It takes another two hours to finish digging her a proper grave, a spot in a clearing in the forest where the sun beats down at the perfect temperature, lined with ferns and wildflowers that surprisingly haven’t wilted-- not quite yet. While John lowers her remains into the grave, you work on twining together a cross and carve her name into it, doing your best to make sure your handwriting isn’t abominable. Bec trots between you and John, shoving his snout into each of your handiworks, making sure they meet his pretentiously high standards.

The last shovelful of dirt lands home as you finish your carving. John throws the shovel aside, and you wipe some sweat from your forehead, light-headed as ever, but surprisingly at ease. You each grab a side of the cross, ramming the pointed end into the dirt at the head of the grave. You step back. Let out a heavy breath. You look to John, who’s thumbing at something in his hands.

“Want me to give a prayer?” you ask. You couldn’t call yourself a preacher’s son if you didn’t offer, for Christ’s sake. He shakes his head.

“She liked to keep things short and sweet.” You nod along.

“Alright.”

Wordlessly, he strides forward, looping the object in his hands onto the cross. It’s Jade’s medical mask, dirty teal with black doodles as prominent as the day you met. Your eyes rest on her last doodle, a half-finished drawing of Bec mid-stride, muzzle stretched forward and legs pumping. You can see where you and John had worked together to finish the picture, both of your lines significantly more wobbly.

What more can you say, though? You both fucking suck at drawing.

Satisfied, he steps back to your side. Gently pushes your shoulder to get you to start walking. You trudge through the underbrush and towards the forest line before he pauses, looking back.

“Bye, Jade.” His words are so light, you’d think he’d be expecting to run into her the very next day, if you didn’t know better.

“Bye, Jade,” you echo him. He offers a wave in her direction, then keeps moving. But a smudge of white keeps you in place, letting John’s footsteps fade. Bec shows no sign of moving, his head bowed as he carefully sniffs the grave. Then he settles into the dirt, glaringly white with the sun shining right on him. You know this is the last you’ll see of him.

“Take care of yourself, assbag,” you call. His tattered ear twitches in your direction.

You turn and leave the woods.

 

_________________________

 

The car feels disturbingly empty.

Your backpacks line the back seats, you and John occupy the front. The rifle sits in your lap, kept company by the same maps you used to get here.

“Home?” he asks you one last time, just to make sure.

“Home,” you repeat. You might as well have ripped off your underwear, attached it to a stick, and waved it through the car’s skylight like a white flag. Because this is admitting defeat. There’s enough water and sports drinks to survive a shameful road trip to John’s house. From there, you’ll have to make the same decision you had made what feels like eons ago: stay and die, or leave and die.

John shifts the car into reverse. Backs out. Shifts into drive. Off you go.

The car’s carriage bounces over the gravel, the wheels cracking on each rock. The woods disappear as quickly as they’d arrived-- abruptly, and you’re back to the shifting fields, interrupted on occasion by weathered trailer homes.

Something creeps into your peripheral vision. You don’t even have the energy to flinch.

John’s hand stays outstretched, waiting expectantly for something from you. You look to your side, in your pockets, behind your seat, before you realize what it is he wants.

Your hand.

Your left hand, wrapped in a fresh splint, eases its way into his right before you even know what you’re trying to say to him. His fingers curl where yours can’t. And he keeps driving, never once letting his steering hand waver on the wheel.

 

_________________________

 

 

You’ve been southern-bound for about an hour when you spot it. You shriek like a banshee until John stops, scrambling out of the car like the entire carriage has been padded with asbestos and you’re belatedly realizing that it’s guilty for your slow, painful death. Stumbling a few times in your mad dash to it, you contemplate if this is the next step in your downward spiral, the next symptom in the mystery illness that’s frying your head. Mirages. Great.

But when your hand momentarily smacks into it, you realize it’s real, and it’s _glorious_.

It’s a thin slab of wood on a stake, hammered into the dirt by the roadside. It sways with the wind, and you wonder how many miracles were wasted on keeping the pathetic thing upright for so long.

However many it took, it was worth it. Because the sign reads “KARKAT” in handwriting you never thought you’d see again-- at least in this lifetime. There’s a note stuck to the back.

The sign is so unexpected and so not-terrible that you nearly break down there and then, let yourself melt into the dusty gravel all while crying and laughing, snot and saltwater and all being absorbed by the parched ground you’re kneeling in. This is like asking for a pair of socks for your birthday, and getting a goddamn yacht. Something so far out of a reach and impossible that you’d never even considered it in the first place-- you thought he was dead!

John lurks behind you, clearly itching to drag you back to the car because out here you’re exposed, out here you’re vulnerable. But he knows something’s anchoring you down, and curiosity gets the best of him.

“Who wrote that?” he asks, the wind carrying away half the volume in his sentence. You snort and drag a hand over the text. You’re forever going to wonder how the mind-boggling fuck he managed to survive, considering he’s a _pacifist_. And a stubborn one at that. You send a blindingly bright smile at John, for once able to say his name without even an ounce of repressed irritation crammed behind the syllables.

“Kankri.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really hope this wasn't too sappy... i have a habit of making things super sappy, heh. also yeesh, so much dialogue. sorry for that. i hate writing it because it always feels so lengthy and kinda tacky, so here's me. crossing my fingers i didn't bore/disappoint anyone. 
> 
> also sorry for all the delay! some of this chapter was written months ago, actually, and the rest was written within the past two days. if you can pick out which parts were written when, i'd give you an electronic high-five. 
> 
> there was going to be a lot more revealed here, but halfway through i just thought, 'where's the fun in that? draw it out, ya goof!' and... well. yeah.
> 
> on a side note: i'm considering changing the summary! i feel like it's kinda cheesy, and the first line in the fic might be a bit better. the change isn't definite, but if it eventually /does/ happen, this is a heads up, i guess!
> 
> anyways, the song for this chapter is "like the dawn" by the oh hello's! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd9vh89To4M)
> 
> finally, as always, thanks for reading!
> 
> EDIT: i finally made some art for this fic! it's a drawing of a part from the first chapter, eheh. here's a link!: http://galactic-goat.tumblr.com/post/142154144097/it-finally-occurred-to-me-that-i-havent-even-made
> 
> EDIT X2: behold... better art: http://galactic-goat.tumblr.com/post/144710874182/wasnt-super-satisfied-with-the-first-thing-i-drew


	7. Chapter 7

 

The entire country-- or possibly the entire world-- has buckled and collapsed under the piling weight of a billion corpses, bloated death swiping clean the signs of living civilization, leaving you with an uninterrupted stretch of road that reaches almost to infinity.

But John still drives the fucking speed limit.

“I think we want to be there before old age kills him,” you grouse, legs kicked up on the dashboard as you pass a somewhat familiar roadsign.

“Shhh,” John helpfully answers. His back is hunched in a manner mildly reminiscent of an elderly woman intentionally clogging traffic in her beaten-down-with-age, powder blue Mini Cooper. He’s been considerably tight-lipped since you had agreed on the new destination yesterday, but it’s not necessarily a _cold_ silence. Just contemplative.

A brief glance to the crumpled maps in your lap and another to the leftwards horizon confirm that you’re on the right track. The city’s faded skyline is poking holes into the clouds, and even from here you can see the charring on concrete and glass… You’re pretty much passing a massive cemetery.

“Turn here,” you grunt, prodding a finger at a weathered road to the right. The telltale click that follows informs you that John, square-shaped pissboy wonder, is using his turn signal.

“Did some cops pummel you and steal your lunch money when you were a wriggling infant, Egbert?”

“No?” he scrunches his nose at your question.

“Then why are you fucking around with turn signals?” you hiss. Unaffected, John doesn’t even waste a glance.

“Just being a good driver, that’s all,” he chimes. You raise your arms to the heavens in exasperation. Let them slap against your legs. Pointedly look at the trees framing the new road instead of insufferable John.

“You’re positive this is the right place? And the right guy?” his voice drifts over anyways. You grudgingly hand him a shrug.

“The message was twenty sentences shorter than I’m comfortable with considering it’s _Kankri_ we’re talking about, but the note taped to the back of the sign had the holier-than-thou and smart-assery down pat.” Tugging said note from your pocket, you stare at it again.

“I mean, ‘Meet me in the halls of religious persecution and scandal’? He’s talking about the church near our house that Dad preached at-- he always thought the people there hated him for being an atheist. Whatever poetic blame-wankery he’s pulling in the sentence itself is supposed to throw strangers off our tail.”

“I don’t know if that’s smart or kind of irritating,” John muses.

“Irritating,” you answer. You’re out of practice when it comes to Kankri’s ridiculous antics that are guaranteed to hike you up a flag pole of frustration and barely-contained fury by giving you the wedgie of the century. Thus, you’re letting all your formal snark training resurface while you can in preparation of possibly seeing him again. You love the guy, but you also hate him. If he wasn’t family, you would’ve disemboweled him with any and every everyday object on hand the first time he opened his mouth.  

Your eyes skitter over the landscape as you drive past the opening to a small neighborhood, catching on the brick patterns of one particular building.

“There’s my house,” you sigh.

“Really?” John gasps, suddenly risking your lives for a sharp three seconds to lean across your lap and get a clear view of your house while driving. Your fingers are practically bleeding from your tight grip on the door handle, and the motion sickness from the excessive swerving is a good lesson in _exactly why John should always keep his eyes on the road at all times, damn it._ There has to be some kind of particularly specific variation of the word ‘pathetic’ created solely for instances where some moron nearly crashes a car on an empty road-- imagine surviving the world’s festering shitshow, formally known as the Zombie Apocalypse, and dying of something as mind-boggling idiotic as a car crash.

“Your house looks cute,” John comments, apparently charmed by a two-story brick disaster caked with nearly enough dirt to create a small island. He tilts his head to give you his trademark smile, only slightly weaker.

“Abide the fucking law and keep your eyes on the road,” you grit. His head snaps back to its proper position.

“Had a change of heart?” he snorts.

“More like ‘need a change of pants,’” you growl. He pats your shoulder in consolation, and if anyone were to fling the accusation out that you had leaned into the touch, you’re not sure you’d have the decency to hurl a chair at the accuser and call them a liar.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time you reach the lonesome parking lot cowering beneath the church, your corpse-encounter counter is surprisingly low, with only two notable cases. One had stumbled into the car’s path and lost a leg after being clipped by the wheel. The other lurked by the entryway of the lot, still donning her pearls and lipstick. You pray to God (it’s not like _she_ can) that she had applied it better a few weeks ago, meaning it resembled less of an abstract mess smeared across her chin. You got out of the car and caught her unsuspecting throat with your sickle when John nervously asked you to, looking slightly constipated.

He parks in the lot (directly between the lines,  _you swear in the name of shit-whiffing Pete on a ball-smashing motorcycle--_ ) and you clamber out, feeling oddly on-edge. Wanting to banish that awkward feeling, you start purposefully striding to the doors. John clears his throat and you freeze mid-step. You twist your neck to look behind you. He casually points to the three backpacks in the back of the car.

“Oh,” you wheeze.

“Happens to the best of us,” he shoulders two of the bags. ‘ _No,_ ’ you want to spit back, ‘ _it only happens to me_.’ Instead, you slip your arms through the straps and shimmy a bag onto your back, using your now-free hand to drive a knuckle into your throbbing temple.

Valuables now on hand, you both trek up the short concrete ramp to the burgundy double doors. They’re almost exactly how you remember them, down to the slightly-rusted door knobs. The splintering streaks across the wood, courtesy of some stranger’s nails, are a little less familiar.

John crouches with his hand on on knob as you stand behind, eyeing up the area behind you. The hinges let out an agonized groan as he gently nudges the door open. No sounds creep out, and the darkness in the church seems to seep from the opening. Sparing a moment to glance at John, you fidget as you watch his head swing to a new position for a better view. His eyes narrow, obviously unsatisfied with his inability to see.

“Jade, can you poke your rifle in and--” John stiffens. You freeze too.

“Sorry.” He reluctantly reaches behind his back to grab the rifle strapped over one shoulder, warring for a spot with one of the two backpacks he’s carrying. Flipping it to the proper position, he nods you over as he peers through the scope, through the opening.

Scooping up a rock near your foot as you lumber closer, you toss it through the crack before you reach his side. It clatters. No other sounds come. You toe the door open entirely as John straightens back up, rifle still propped against his shoulder.

“Church, sweet church,” you mutter before stepping in. The carpeting groans under your footsteps as you stroll forwards. The stained glass window above the altar is surprisingly intact, displaying a technicolor rendition of Jesus with his head bowed, hands clasped together in prayer. As the light streams by your feet, you wonder if your black turtleneck and stubble-covered jaw make you look any more like Dad.

Then you feel John’s tense presence close behind, and the time for daydreaming is over.

“Your dad preached here?” he asks, voice small in the wide room.

“Yeah.” You take a moment to survey the frontmost pew to the left, where you always sat with Nepeta. With a flash of guilt, you realize you haven’t thought of Dad’s girlfriend, Nepeta’s mom,  even once since the apocalypse kicked down the door and massacred everyone with a sawed-off shotgun. “If he wasn’t doing an out-of-town sermon, he was pastoring here,” you jump over that unpleasant thought.

“It’s nice here.” You hum in agreement, despite knowing he’s probably just playing nice. The woodwork is rickety as hell and the building’s soaked in the smell of mothballs; religion wasn’t a huge investment in this area, and it really showed. But it’s endearing to you in the way you’d love an old-as-balls, dysfunctional pet. It’s patchy and weathered and downright ugly, but you’ve been with it long enough to that it’s impossible for you to give even a fraction of a slimy shit over its flaws.

“Anyways,” you start, “we should probably start tearing things up and look for--”

The carpeting creaks again, but neither you or John are moving.

You nearly lose your balance as John slides around your spot, shoulders squared and gun at the ready directly in front of you.

“I’ve got a rifle!” he belts into the open, letting the words echo. The creaking cuts off abruptly.

“...I think they can see that, you bumbling shit-covered mongrel,” you mutter. You don’t have the heart to tell him that his legs are shaking. It’s obvious to anyone but him that he doesn’t have the will to pull the trigger at another sentient human being.

Well, maybe Kankri doesn’t quite get it either.

“I-I’m doing my best to not make this seem commandeering-- you’re your own person, and while the threatening gesture has a strong basis, it is _not_ doing my heart rate any favors. Of course, you could ignore my request if you so wish but that would be strongly frowned upon; don’t be a revolting human being--”

“Your request, fuckface?” you interrupt the beginnings of a speech bounding from the end of the isle. The speaker lets out an exasperated huff, but it doesn’t have its usual _umph_. You fail to decipher whether that’s a blessing or the indicator of a curse.

“Put down the rifle-- please?” he finally asks.

Eyes trained forward at the silhouette in front of the altar, you reach forward to grope at the hand John’s using to hold the rifle upright. It takes some insistent prodding but the gun quickly is pointed downwards, its holder sagging from the tail end of an adrenaline rush.

“Alright,” you grunt. “Now get out here.”

The figure slinks out from the shadow beneath the stained glass, almost your height and almost your frame twisted into a sheepish man donning black leggings and a bright red sweater.

“Still wearing that hyper-saturated abomination against the entirety of the fashion industry?” you call across the room. Your voice bounces over the pews, and you watch Kankri fidget at your comment.

“C’mon,” you mutter to John as you clamp onto his hand, dragging him over.

“Hello, Karkat,” Kankri finally says as you get closer. His face is bruised and alarmingly gaunt-- years of comfortable living have fled the perimeter that are his features.

“Stiff as ever, Kankri,” you fire back. The corners of your mouth are twitching upwards, but he probably can’t see it in the squint-worthy brightness of the light beaming from the window. Hallelujah.

“It really is wonderful to see you again,” he ignores your snark. You wait for him to continue, for the immediate, inevitable tangent about the hardships and agony he’d endured through the past few weeks of whatever the equivalent of hell is to an atheist. But there’s nothing. You raise an eyebrow.

“Are you going to keep flapping your lips at me, or are we just going to have to stand in prolonged silence?”

“No,” Kankri sighs. “I’ve been told that quiet is the best policy when venturing outside safe zones, and I’d rather not tread on my limitations.”

“Told by _who_?” you ask at the same time John repeats, “ _safe zones_?”

And John finally blips onto Kankri’s radar-- of _course_ he’d be ignored until he’d shown interest in Kankri’s words; not even pointing a shotgun at the pompous shitwhiffer could grab Kankri’s attention in the manner that asking him a genuine question could. Kankri gives a smug, tired smirk, eyes drifting back towards you.

“So you managed to make a friend?”

“Why does that sound like you’re implying that I can’t make friends?” you grumble, only to be ignored as Kankri leans around you to get a better look at John.

“It’s nice to meet you; I’m Kankri Vantas,” he throws his usual frigid introduction out. His arms are still crossed like he’s struggling to stay in one piece, and you can’t help but wonder if he’s gotten smaller. John, trying to make up for the lack of enthusiasm in Kankri’s introduction, gives a purposeful stride closer.

“I’m John Egbert; nice to meet you too!” he chimes, sticking his hand out.

Oh. Dear dickwhiffing higher being of humiliation and repressed memories, you forgot to warn him.

Kankri doesn’t extend his hand, opting to face you instead. John wilts in the corner of your eye, slinking to stand slightly behind you. You shift your right elbow to nudge him, offering a hopefully comforting glance. You’ll hash it out for him later, if only for the sake of maintaining his sanity throughout the length of his exposure to Kankri.

“Anyways,” you hack into the silence, “safe zones? And who have you been talking to?”

Kankri scratches his jaw, and for a moment you _swear_ you see his eyes flit to the door to the left of the altar. He’s always been flighty and fidgety under stress though (and yes, the zombie apocalypse _probably_ warrants the title of a stressful situation), so you’ll give him the benefit of doubt.

“I found a few thoroughly barricaded areas with well-armed supervisors. The rules are revoltingly rigid where I’m staying,” he quietly answers. John lets out a dissatisfied hum.

“How come we never ran into them?” he asks.

“Most of them are small towns. Did you go through any of those?” Kankri responds, though his mind is obviously somewhere far, far away. Otherwise there’d be at least one word in those sentences worthy of a standardized vocabulary test.

“No, we drove mainly through back roads,” John answers.

“And you’re implying that you did?” you tack on. There’s no rhyme or reason behind him being here (and you’re glad there isn’t; otherwise he wouldn’t have a brain to tell himself not break his pacifist oath and eat people). Where the hell would he be driving if he had to pass through small towns? You live by a city; the only things outside of it for miles are fields and suburbs.

The sound of his Toms scraping on the carpet irritates you a lot more than it has any right to.

“I guess I am,” Kankri offers. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Settles back on his heels. Your eye must twitch, based on the way his precariously-balanced glasses momentarily wobble.

“This is probably the only time in my life that I’ll say this, but keep spewing garbage out of your face gap.” Pulling straightforward answers out of your brother is about as pleasurable as going dumpster-diving at a local daycare-- and there feels like there’s twice as much shit involved.

“Eloquently phrased,” Kankri drawls, pushing his glasses slightly further back onto his nose. “But I’ll cater to your rude demand; think of this as a gift for our little reunion, Karkat.” Cue a smug smile.

What miniscule amounts of warmth you have left in your body surge to your head. “You know what, you sweat-covered plastic bag of testes? I’m taking back my request--”

John slaps his hand over your mouth. It stays firmly in place as you try to wiggle away, furiously eyeing him as he makes a rolling motion to Kankri with his newly unoccupied hand, gesturing for him to continue. Another awkward few seconds pass before you give up entirely. He’s probably trying to smother you now with his sweaty sausage fingers to ensure you don’t whine over Kankri withholding information in the next hour. Smart thinking, John. Also go fuck yourself with a foot-long razor-encrusted dildo, John.

“Thank you,” Kankri widens his grin at your anticlimactic surrender. John’s face stays astoundingly straight as you lick a stripe across his palm in a shambly jab of revenge, contracting every disease to ever grace the grime on John’s hand in one fluid swipe.

“So how’d you wind up here?” John asks, casually peeling his hand away to scrub his palm against the side of his pants. You’re fantasizing over deep-throating a bar of soap.

“I was at work when the disease started showing its symptoms in the city,” Kankri answers. “My coworkers decided they’d help me.”

“Oh really,” you drone.

“Karkat, please. They don’t hate me,” Kankri nervously chuckles. You tilt your head with a knowing glare.

“Well…” Kankri tries again, “There are a few that don’t hate me.”

“They only needed you for your car, didn’t they,” you deadpan.

“Can you stop making such brash insinuations?” he hisses back. “You’re not even right. The news reached the workplace before the people that were inflicted with the virus came, so we went into a lockdown while waiting for further news-- which, might I add, was blatantly sensationalized and inaccurate. I called you and Father multiple times, but only he picked up.”

“Dad picked up?” you start forward. “What’d he say?”

“He was worried,” Kankri responds, still miffed. “He said he had been locked in the church after hearing about the outbreak; it started by our city, but it spread quickly. There was nothing where he was, quite yet.” He shuffles a bit, a spark of genuine curiosity hiding behind his pout and scratched glasses. “We both had no idea where you were, though. We took turns calling. Father was on the verge of crying, to be honest.”

“Fuck.” Your throat constricts in guilt. “I got into a bit of a situation.”

“More like a clusterfuck,” John helpfully adds.

“Yeah,” you agree. “A sloppy mess that probably earned the title of a ‘shituation,’ actually.”

“Insightful,” Kankri’s lip twitches in distaste at your language. “I’m assuming that’s where the splint came from?”

“John and his cousin came along with it free of charge,” you add. Kankri, who in most occasions acts like an insufferable, overly-sensitive-to-the-point-of-being-insensitive prick, seems to catch the drift of there being one fewer member of your party than you had claimed. He says nothing about it. It still stings.

“Well, after that we both agreed to do our best to stay safe and hung up,” he rambles onwards. “An hour later people in the office started mentioning how their relatives were calling to explain that they were building up safe zones, barricading entire towns. Then the manager suggested that we evacuate and settle in one of the towns; no one was quite sure when those safe zones would start closing up.”

“So they _did_ need your car,” you humorlessly muse.

“I might have driven _a few_ people,” Kankri snaps back. He twitches back into his original position, tugging at his turtleneck once before crossing his arms and giving an agressive inhale. “About half an hour away there’s a town called Skaia that we traveled to.”

“...Skaia?” you and John repeat, blinking owlishly.

“That’s my cue!” a stranger’s voice chimes in. She gets a prime view of the opening of the rifle’s barrel as you instinctively flinch behind John right as he scurries to shoulder the gun. She swings her legs around as she strolls from the doorway by the left of the altar, black lipstick tugged into a warm smile despite your outstandingly enthusiastic greeting. Her white converse are specked with blood and dirt; they carelessly thunk against the carpet as she makes her way to your group. The tension of the room holds your lungs at gunpoint, and you refuse to breathe even as she waltzes directly in front of you.

“Hiya!” she chirps. As an afterthought, she takes a singular finger and pushes the rifle’s barrel down, still perky even as John’s face crumples. “You had the safety on,” she adds when no one else comments.

“Who the hell are you?” you finally growl. Her composure doesn’t crack.

“Whore you?” she counters. A tanned hand edges in your direction, two black nails delivering the flick of the millennia right between your eyes. You stumble back, an incredulous look plastered across your face as if Adam Sandler himself had descended from the Heavens in a neon thong and fairy wings to do a half-assed dance and declare Kankri as the rightful ruler of the goddamn Underworld.

“Whore...? Why who-- Oh,” John laughs, still holding the rifle close to his chest. Kankri lets out a tired, high-pitched whine. He’s resigned to your inherently foul speech, but the second anyone else flings around a derogatory phrase, he’s sure to voice his discomfort.

“Nah, I’m only joking!” she waves you off. “I know who you are, Karkat.”

“I wish you didn’t have even a fucking iota of an idea as to who I am,” you grouse; all you’re seeing is Kankri’s exhausted, guilty face.

“...This is my escort,” he belatedly mentions. “Karkat, Jonathan, this is Roxy.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet’cha!” she crows, straightening her back with pride. Kankri flinches at the boom in her voice.

“Why are you being so loud?” he whines. “You told me we needed to be quiet.”

“Oh, that?” Roxy reaches to twirl a strand of her dyed-pink hair. “Bro asked me to tell you that because he wanted you to shut up.” She scrambles to hold her hands out in an apologetic gesture. “His words-- not mine!”

Kankri seems to melt into the carpet, dejectedly scuffing the ground with his Tom again.

“Are we ever going to get an explanation as to what the everloving fuck is going on?” you break the momentary silence.

“Sure,” Roxy shrugs. “Skaia’s like a big camp for all the survivors we can hold. Kankri came to Skaia a few weeks back with a couple of buddies. He mentioned he had a brother he wanted to find. We’ve been making search requests based on the order of the asker’s arrival, and Vantas’s turn finally came. So we decided to go looking for you, and with the help of one of our _smoking hot_ scouters--” she jabs a finger at herself and mouths ‘me’-- “we placed a bunch of signs all up the wazoo! Then we set up shop here and waited for you… and tada! You came.”

“That plan has more holes than legitimate substance,” you bluntly reply.

“But it worked,” Roxy winks. You keep your mouth strictly in a flat line.

“So…” John trails off. It warrants a confused glance from you, mainly because John Egbert? Acting _shy_? Surely your ears picked up the proper sounds waves and suddenly shitted out halfway through the process of actually _registering_ the sounds.

“Uh-huh?” Roxy nods him on, still grinning.

“Is this search party only taking back the people it was looking for?”

And then light-hearted conversation’s demeanor hurtles face-first into the deepest damn canyon in the fucking Desert of Disappointment because you’re finally picking up on the way John’s smiling through his fried nerves like a pageant model who’s been asked one too many sexist questions. You can see the carpet fraying and the pews rotting and the walls crumbling to dust around John’s steady, unmoving feet in the church because you’ve left him behind and he’s _got nowhere to go, no one to go to_.

“He’s coming with us,” you blurt out before Roxy’s finished opening her mouth. She shuts it.

“Alrighty,” she finally replies in a sing-song voice, though there are stress-lines forming under her eyes. “Our morning routine involves us packing everything up in our bags just in case, so we’re good to ollie on out.”

“We have a car we can take too, by the way,” John pokes a finger towards the church’s door, still looking mildly frazzled. Roxy instantly springs back, excitement pummeling her posture back to perfection.

“Hell yes! We’re always down for another car but--” she pauses to pinch her chin, leaning back to survey you, John, and Kankri with a quizzical eye, “we’ve got to do some dividing.”

“Why would we need to divide?” Kankri jumps in.

“Well,” Roxy’s lips are comically stretched as she talks past the strange grip she has on the skin of her chin, “it’s kinda simple. We’ve got two cars. If I teamed up Karkat and Kanks--” Kankri puffs up at the nickname-- “they might decide to book it away from you and me. Kankri’s got some of my supplies and I’m guessing Karkat has some of his own, so they might decide to leave us in the dust.”

“Despite the fact that I’d literally attempt to throw myself to the corpses within half an hour of being isolated with Kankri, I can see where you’re coming from,” you grudgingly agree.

“What about me and Karkat?” John furrows his brow.

“Also a no-go,” Roxy crosses her arms in an X. “If you guys follow us to Skaia, you could easily whip back around and go find more weaponry to blow us to the ground… Or you might have more friends with guns and ammo,” she places a hand on her hip. “We like to help out as many as we can, but we’ve got to play it safe, guys.”

“We’re not like that!” John gasps.

“But it’s not like _I’d_ know what you’re like, Johnny-boy!” Roxy waggles a finger back. “Hearing isn’t believing, kiddos, and you’d be surprised how much trust costs now that we’re all chilling in the aftermath of the apocalypse!”

You and John both choke on whatever arguments you could supply back, mainly because they have about as much validity as saying ‘ _nuh-_ uh!’ and blowing the lamest, driest raspberry to ever curse this side of the continent.

“...Then what exactly are you planning?” John questions.

“You and Kankri; me and Karkat.” She turns on her heel, striding to the doorway by the left of the altar and leaning in. She drags out two backpacks, slinging one over her shoulder, and skips closer before tossing it to Kankri-- who promptly drops it before scrambling to pick it back up. “You and Kankri don’t know each other so you won’t try anything sneaky.” Casually, she wrestles something poking out from the side of her pack. Surprise tries to jump you and wrestle you out of your pocket change, but you simply refuse; at this point, the rifle she pulls out doesn’t even faze you.

“Who’s to say I won’t manage to fight my way into the driver’s seat and sabotage whatever shambly plan that’s miraculously managed to drag itself this far without a hitch?” you ask.

“You won’t.” Roxy flicks off the safety of her rifle. “You’ve been wobbling in place throughout our entire chat, Vantas.” Then your mouth is flying open with a million explicatives surging out like a righteous river of sheer rage and humiliation--

“--Let’s head on out!” Roxy interrupts. All those swears suddenly veer into a sharp, insistent demand.

“Let me talk to John first.”

“Yeah!” John belatedly chips in. “What he said.”

Roxy and Kankri share a look.

“Okay,” she submits. “Don’t drag your feet, though!” She shuffles to where Kankri is carefully looping the straps over his shoulder and buckling them; you whip around to face John.

“What’d I tell you to tell me a few days ago?” you give a light slap to his shoulder. “I didn’t even notice you looked like hell twice-baked over until you started pulling that shy act directly from your ass!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Jade’s glasses magnify his eyes slightly, making the momentary panic in his eyes all the more visible. “Old habits die hard; I’m learning!”

“I get it, Egbert,” you rush to reel back in your anger, guilt already chewing at your extremities. “I just worry.”

“I mean, you’ve got reasons to. This isn’t exactly the cheeriest scenario.” John offers a reassuring smile. “We’ll be okay, though! We’re headed to the same place!”

“So you’re alright with all of this?” You jut your face closer to his, looking him squarely in the eye. “ _Really_?”

He puts his hands on your shoulder, still smiling. “We are going to be _fine_ ,” he says, nodding along to his own sentence. And for a solid second, you honestly believe him.

  
When he pulls you into a fierce hug though, your entire body has reverted back to its slight, uncontrollable shaking. If it’s any consolation, you have the privilege of knowing that he’s also scared. You can feel him shaking, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well dang, wow! a lot happened between the last chapter and this one updating!
> 
> homestuck ended (i never thought i'd see the day when those words would be used next to each other), i graduated from high school, my summer job started up and i've been working, bluh, blah, there's more but i'm pretty tired tbh, hah. this is kinda why this update took so long-- my writing times are more random than usual!
> 
> as a kinda-apology for over two months of silence, here's an extra long chapter!! it's like 75% dialogue, but it's 75% dialogue with some /not-dialogue/ sprinkled in! lots of questions still left over kankri's apocalyptic experience in general but they won't be left unanswered! 
> 
> i wrote like the first half about a month and a half ago; again, it was one of those classic struggles of getting everything tied together coherently! but here it is! i sped through the second half in the past few days (so sorry for typos) but here it is!
> 
> the song for this chapter is "home" by the unlikely candidates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiiiMBZ2YRU)!
> 
> anyways, i want to say thank you all SO much for the kudos and comments, i'm bad at getting back quickly to those, but i really do appreciate them a ton! you're all super radical and kind, oml!
> 
> finally, thanks for reading! :^D


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